The Health Resources and Services Administration seeks approval to reinstate four Healthy Start screening forms after their information collection expired September 30, 2026. A notice published October 13 invites comments by November 12.
The forms cover demographic, background, prenatal and parent/child information. HRSA proposes limited revisions now, with broader changes planned for the 2029–2034 grant cycle. This notice is an information-collection request, rather than an approval of every proposed change.
What the program collects
HRSA says Healthy Start serves communities with disproportionately high infant mortality and adverse birth outcomes. It describes 114 grantees in 37 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, providing services including case management, care coordination and health education.
The proposed changes clarify instructions, adjust selected response options and add fields for the month of an infant's birth or death. HRSA says the aim is better reporting accuracy and data usability.
The notice does not establish that those changes have already improved health outcomes. It describes what HRSA wants to collect and how it intends to use the information.
Workload concerns remain open
HRSA received six comments during the earlier review. Its account includes a grantee's concern that estimates should reflect record updates, quality assurance, data management and reporting preparation, as well as initial screening.
The agency plans to reassess burden and consider broader recommendations while preparing the next grant-cycle collection. It says the current limited changes are not expected to produce a meaningful workload reduction and removes that claim from their stated purposes.
The table estimates 192,175 annual responses and 56,115 burden hours across the four forms. Totals across different forms should not be treated as a count of unique people or an independently measured total.
The comment window
The published notice prints November 12 as the deadline. It directs written recommendations to the information collection's entry on reginfo.gov, under 'Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments.' The request is OMB number 0915-0338.