by Meghan Maury

Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.

Note: The Take Action tab of DataIndex.us provides information about even more surveys, forms, evaluations, and records notices than are listed in your weekly newsletter.

Surveys

  • Campus Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) Survey. This survey collects data on college athletics. The data is collected from the individual institutions by ED is made available to the public through the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool as well as the College Navigator. Comments due 8/12/25.

  • Overdose Response Strategy Data Collection. This collection focuses on a survey and a reporting tool that ORS teams and their partners will complete to provide critical data to CDC for program monitoring, to inform technical assistance and guidance documents produced by CDC or other partners, and to assess the extent to which the ORS program is achieving the goal of supporting public health and public safety partnerships to reduce drug overdose.  Comments due 7/12/25.

  • NCHS Rapid Surveys System (RSS) Round 7. The RSS is designed to provide time-sensitive data of known quality about emerging and priority health concerns. Among other topics, panelists in the RSS will be asked about health status, life satisfaction, chronic conditions, diabetes, veteran status, health care access and utilization, mental health, and body mass index. Female panelists will be asked about their pregnancy history and family planning. Comments due 7/11/25.

Evaluations

  • WIC Tribal Organizations and U.S. Territories Study. WIC is a food access program intended to improve the health of nutritionally at-risk women and children. This study aims to inform FNS about variations in operations among Tribal Organizations, U.S. territories, and States administering WIC. The results of the study may inform efforts to improve WIC program operations and participant services. Comments due 8/12/25.

  • Evaluation of the Center for Legal and Judicial Innovation and Advancement (CLJIA). This notice announces a revision to what was originally a larger project, the Evaluation of the Child Welfare Capacity Building Collaborative, focused on studying outcomes of TA to child welfare agencies and courts, for both states and tribes. This request will remove most of the prior instruments approved for this project. The larger project showed that there was more variation among the professional audiences being served than anticipated and thus CB had opted to pursue evaluation individually by Center going forward. Comments due 7/12/25.

SPD15 Implementation

  • WISEWOMAN: Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation. The WISEWOMAN program sponsored by the CDC, provides services to low income, uninsured, or underinsured women aged 35-64.  The program collects data on cardiovascular disease risk factors and types of healthy behavior support services for participants served by the program.  Among other changes, this notice announces the implementation of new SPD15 race/ethnicity collection standards.  Comments due 7/11/25.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Removals

  • National Violent Death Reporting System. NVDRS is a state-based surveillance system developed to monitor the occurrence of violent deaths (i.e., homicide, suicide, undetermined deaths, and unintentional firearm deaths) in the United States (U.S.) by collecting comprehensive, detailed, useful, and timely data from multiple sources (e.g., death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports, law enforcement reports) into a useable, anonymous database.  In this revision, CDC is changing the gender variable to "sex" and allowing for only male and female responses as well as removing gender and gender identity from the hate crime reporting section. Comments due 7/12/25.

Program Collections

  • Family Self-Sufficiency. The FSS Program promotes the development of local strategies to coordinate public and private resources that help housing choice voucher program participants, public housing tenants, and tenants in the Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) program obtain employment that will enable participating families to achieve economic independence and reduce dependence on welfare assistance and rental subsidies. This notice announces changes to the forms associated with this program but doesn't clarify what changes are being made. Comments due 8/12/25.

  • National HIV Surveillance System. The National HIV Surveillance System (NHSS) data are the primary data used to monitor the extent and characteristics of the HIV burden in the United States. Revisions were made to simplify data collection and entry for health departments, to collect more relevant data that would help health departments track progress in responding to HIV clusters, and to help health departments better communicate their progress and challenges to CDC so that CDC can provide more effective technical assistance and other support for responding to clusters and outbreaks.  Comments due 7/11/25.

Federal Records

  • FCC Privacy Act of 1974; Matching Program. This document announces a new computer matching program the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) will conduct with the Minnesota Department of Human Services (MDHS). The purpose of this matching program is to verify the eligibility of applicants to and subscribers of Lifeline, and the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).  Under this program, FCC will transfer Social Security Number, date of birth, first and last name to MDHS, which will respond either “yes” or “no” that the individual is enrolled in SNAP or Medicaid.  Comments due July 10.

Also of note:

  • U.S. Election Assistance Commission 2025 Data Summit: Election Administration by the Numbers. During the July 9, 2025, meeting, election officials, academics, and other key stakeholders will participate in panel discussions on election administration and related innovative and groundbreaking data and research. Topics will include the results of the 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS), election funding, voter list maintenance, workforce development, and more.

  • NIST's Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB). The ISPAB is tasked with identifying emerging managerial, technical, administrative, and physical safeguard issues relative to information security and privacy.  Meetings on 7/16 + 7/17 will cover NIST IT Lab activities and updates on several NIST programs.

This newsletter is supported by a generous contribution from The Leadership Conference Education Fund.