NOTE - this synopsis follows a Sources Sought notice that was released on May 7, 2009 under Solicitation Number SS-PCPSB-95026-26. A second, revised Sources Sought notice was released on August 18, 2009 to provide additional details regarding the requirement. The August 18, 2009 notice was amended on August 19, 2009 to provide additional clarification. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) is planning to award a contract for a program entitled, - Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). The required service is defined as code 541910 under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The Contractor will work with NCI program staff to provide support in planning, conducting, and analyzing the fourth administration of the Health Information National Trends Survey. This survey will assess trends in the public's use of health information in an environment of rapidly changing communication and informatics options, and will allow the NCI extramural community access to the data for conducting hypothesis-generating research into the relationship between health information, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The Contractor must possess sufficient technical, scientific, and operational capabilities for engaging in national surveillance efforts. - Survey Design: The Contractor shall, in consultation with the NCI Contracting Officer's Technical Representative, develop a Survey Design Plan for a national sampling frame for the American public that will result in approximately 14,000 interviews of adults aged 18 years or older. - Instrument Design: Using previous iterations of the HINTS questionnaire as a base, while anticipating some changes in content, the Contractor shall develop, revise, format, and finalize an instrument that is designed to elicit valid responses, based on discussions with the Contracting Officer's Technical Representative. The instrument will be designed as a series of topical modules that can be organized into a series of survey instruments that the majority of respondents can complete in 30 minutes or less, and that is appropriate for the selected mode(s) of administration. The Contractor will be responsible for developing both a Spanish and an English language version of the instruments. - Preparation of Materials for OMB Clearance: The Contractor, in consultation with the Contracting Officer's Technical Representative, shall develop and then produce the required paper copies, as well as electronic copies, of all necessary documentation to be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for administrative clearance of HINTS data collection under the Paperwork Reduction Act. - Pretest of Survey Instrument: The survey instrument (including all potential modes of delivery and topic modules) shall be cognitively tested on a sample of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking respondents: to elicit accurate responses to each item, to demonstrate that the instrument and general survey approach are designed to obtain adequate responses, and to ensure that the questions can be answered in the time budgeted for the survey. - Interviewer Hiring and Training: If the proposed survey design involves the use of telephone interviewers, the Contractor shall provide the services of a sufficient number of trained interviewers and other necessary personnel to complete the required number of interviews, and other data collection efforts, within the specified time frame. - Data Collection Procedures: The Contractor shall make use of procedures that are agreed upon by the Contractor Project Director and the NCI Contracting Officer's Technical Representative to constitute best practices in the conduct of sample surveys. NCI recognizes that response rates to surveys are declining, so the Contractor is encouraged to consider any and all mechanisms, including notification letters, monetary reimbursement or other incentives, or alternative modes of data collection (e.g., mixed mode interviews involving the combination of telephone interviews with mail or Internet surveys) to obtain an acceptable response rate. - Data Management: The Contractor shall develop and implement a system to be used to code, edit, clean, and verify and store data as they are collected. Monthly progress reports shall include updates and evaluations of the survey operation, development of the analytical plan, and complete tabular summaries of the interview data as appropriate. At the end of data collection, the Contractor shall provide the NCI a clean file containing data from the interviews and the necessary weighting vectors to enable analyses of data from complex sample surveys. With the final data file, the Contractor shall also supply a - data kit containing hardcopy and electronic documentation that includes: a list of variables, codes, coding rules, edit specifications, edit flags, notes describing any problems with data, and a data dictionary. - Data Analysis: Data analysis activities will be conducted in collaboration with the Contracting Officer's Technical Representative to support the information needs of data users and results users. Analytic activities will include creating a spreadsheet of metadata values to support the development of an online informatics application. The Contractor will be required to create the standardized, electronic coding structures that will be needed to make display of the HINTS data available through the NCI cancer Bioinformatics Grid (caBIG - https://cabig.nci.nih.gov/). - Dissemination: The Contractor shall be responsible for creating and delivering a communication/dissemination plan for promoting use of HINTS data and products. The NCI intends to award a cost-reimbursement contract with a period of performance of four years. The Government intends to have a full & open competition for this requirement in the form of a Request for Proposal (RFP). This synopsis is not an RFP; an RFP is anticipated for release on or about January 8, 2010 through Federal Business Opportunities (http://fbo.gov/). Questions regarding this requirement must be submitted in writing and directed to Stacy Hollis at holliss@mail.nih.gov. The reference number to be used for this announcement is RFP N02-PC-95026-26. All correspondence must cite the reference number as provided.
