DOI: 10.7280/d1059f
title: Annual Survey of Orange County 1986

description: This is the fifth year of the Orange County Annual Survey. The 1986 report
 asks questions found in national surveys and compares Orange County to the
 nation. It examines key trends over time with questions repeated annually
 in our survey. The design, analysis, and interpretation of the 1986 survey
 are guided by goals (1) to provide decisionmakers in the private and
 public sectors with valid and current information on Orange County
 residents; (2) to track shifts in important attitudes and population
 characteristics over time; (3) to study the social, economic and political
 issues of Orange County from a non-advocacy positions and (4) to help
 establish public discussion and enlightened debate in future public
 policy. The sample size is 1,008 Orange County adult residents.Online data
 analysis & additional documentation in Link below.
description: The Orange County Annual Survey was conducted by Mark Baldassare, an
 associate professor of social ecology at UC Irvine. The telephone
 interviews with 1,008 adult residents took place between September 2 and
 19. Telephone interviews provide representative data in Orange County,
 because more than 97 percent of the households have telephones.
 
 The calls were made on weekend days and weekday nights using a random
 sample of listed and unlisted telephone numbers. Telephone numbers were
 randomly generated by computer from a list of working blocks of telephone
 exchanges. Within a household, respondents were chosen for interview using
 the Troldahl-Carter method, which randomly selects a househoId member from
 a grid. The field work was conducted by the Center for Survey Research,
 Public Policy Research Organization, at UC Irvine. The sample was
 generated by Pijacki Associates of Shoreham, New York.
 
 Each interview contained 90 questions and took an average of 20 minutes to
 complete. The surveys were designed in three stages over several months.
 In the first stage, amail questionnaire and personal interviews with
 community leaders were used to define topics and questions. The second
 stage involved meetings with the Research Advisory Committee. In this
 stage, Mark Baldassare drafted questions and made revisions based upon
 comments from the group. The final stage involved extensive consultation
 between Baldassare and the Center for Survey Research staff, followed by
 pre-tests and final revisions of the questions.
 
 The interview began with questions about housing, economics, growth and
 general evaluations of Orange County. These were followed by questions on
 transportation issues. Later in the interview, we turned to the topics of
 media use, civic and social responsibility and civil liberties. The
 conclusion of the survey was devoted to questions about respondents'
 household, financial, personal and political characteristics.
 
 The survey also included questions devoted to the concerns of two private
 sponsors. These are not part of the Orange County Annual Survey report.
 
 The survey's validity was checked by comparing the sample's
 characteristics to available information on Orange County's
 population. We compared the 1986 survey results to the 1980 Census,
 previous Orange County Annual Surveys, and other recent polling data. Age,
 marital status, and other demographic features of our sample were close to
 those noted in other studies. For data analyses, we statistically weighted
 the sample to represent the actual regional distribution of Orange County
 residents.
 
 The sampling error for this survey is +/3 percent. This means it is 95
 percent certain that the results are within 3 percentage points of what
 they would be if all adults in Orange County were interviewed. The
 sampling error for any subgroup would be larger. Sampling error is just
 one type of error to which surveys are subject. Results may be influenced
 by many other factors, such as question wording, survey timing and
 interview design.