DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03743.v3
title: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, January 2003
title: Version 3

description: This poll is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys
that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other
political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their
opinions of President George W. Bush and his handling of the presidency,
foreign policy, and the economy, as well as their views on the
Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the United States Congress.
Their views were sought on what effect the Republican-controlled
Congress will have on homeland security, the economy, taxes,
opportunities for minorities, and health care. A series of questions
addressed the current situation in Iraq, including whether Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein had kept his promise to United Nations weapons
inspectors, whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, what the
appropriate action by the United States should be, whether the
respondent expected the United States to take military action against
Iraq, and what action the respondent thought the United States should
take. In addition, respondents were asked for their reaction to reports
that North Korea had resumed production of nuclear weapons and whether
North Korea or Iraq posed the greatest threat to world peace and
stability. A series of questions probed respondents' views on their
concern for the safety of children and whether the news media's coverage
of child abductions had been accurate or out of proportion. Respondents
were asked whether the kidnapping of children had increased since he/she
was a child, how many children were abducted by strangers each year,
whether a child was more likely to be abducted by a stranger or by an
acquaintance/family member, and whether the public should have access to
information on convicted sex offenders, including their addresses. Those
polled were asked a series of questions on the subject of health, with a
focus on high blood pressure and hypertension. Respondents were asked to
assess the frequency with which they participated in the following
activities: drinking caffeinated beverages, adding salt to food,
consuming alcoholic beverages, selecting low-fat food, exercising for at
least 30 minutes, having a regular exam by a physician, and having their
blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked. Respondent knowledge of
the link between high blood pressure and diabetes, stroke, heart attack,
cancer, and kidney disease was assessed. Those queried were asked to
describe the frequency with which they experienced headaches/migraines,
back/neck pain, stomach/ulcer pain, joint pain/arthritis, and
menstrual/reproductive/pelvic pain. In addition, respondents were asked
to rate their average daily pain, whether they had ever been diagnosed
as having chronic pain, what methods of pain management they employed,
and whether they viewed alternative therapies as an effective treatment
for pain. Additional items elicited respondents' views on abortion,
whether the policies of the Bush administration treated the rich and the
poor fairly, whether the United States was winning the war on terrorism,
the method of transportation the respondent used to get to school as a
child, and the method of transportation used by their children.
Background information on respondents includes age, gender, voter
registration and participation history, political party, political
orientation, marital status, religion, education, Hispanic descent,
race, children in household, and household income.
description: A variation of random-digit dialing using primary sampling
units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone numbers
identical through the eighth digit and stratified by geographic region,
area code, and size of place. Within households, respondents were
selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and modified by Charles
Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1963).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll #1, January 2003
description: Adult population of the United States aged 18 and over
having a telephone at home.
description: This collection has not been processed by ICPSR
staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this
collection in essentially the same form in which they were received.
When appropriate, documentation has been converted to Portable Document
Format (PDF), data files have been converted to non-platform-specific
formats, and variables have been recoded to ensure respondents'
anonymity.The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.