DOI: 10.3886/icpsr21181.v1
title: Northwest Area Foundation Horizons Social Indicators Survey, 2004-2005
title: Version 1

description: The purpose of the study was to gather information
 pertinent to community, neighborhood, local government, and
 community-based activities in order to find ways to reduce poverty
 throughout the Northwestern states of Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana,
 Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington. The survey first
 asked the respondents to name their place of residence (in terms of
 state, county, and town), how long they had lived at their residence,
 and how much longer they planned to reside there. Then a sequence of
 questions asked respondents for their thoughts about the community,
 such as how they felt about it, whether they felt they belonged,
 whether they were fairly treated or excluded from the community, and
 how safe they felt walking around their community at night. They were
 also asked about the attitudes of individuals and the relationships
 between community members. The survey further asked about community
 involvement, group membership, and social participation, access to
 outside sources for problem-solving, and how well the members
 cooperated with one another (in groups and in neighborhoods) when they
 disagreed. The questionnaire also asked respondents to assess how well
 people of different ethnic groups interacted with the community as a
 whole and within groups, organizations, and activities. It asked for
 respondents' assessment of government services for the community,
 their trust in government as well as members and leaders of local
 groups (business, ethnic, and religious), and the cooperation of the
 community in emergencies. Respondents were asked to evaluate their
 ability to make a positive impact in their community and the ability
 of people and groups to provide assistance to the poverty-stricken and
 to reduce the number of those in poverty. Moreover, the survey asked
 respondents about the presence of leadership programs in their
 community and the effects, if any, they had on its members. Switching
 the focus, respondents were asked to evaluate their personal or
 financial status, their ability to acquire a loan, credit, or other
 financial services, and if they ever had difficulty paying for living
 costs (food, housing, electricity, heating, telephone, or health
 care). They were also asked to estimate how many people in the
 community could not afford the basic living costs. Questions were
 asked of respondents about their interest in staying informed about
 public affairs, how often they accessed information in newspapers, how
 often they voted in elections, the frequency in which young people
 left town in search of better opportunities, and about the possibility
 of implementing and developing small/local businesses within the
 community. Finally, the survey collected general demographic
 information including marital status, age, gender, race, education,
 religion and religious affiliation, employment status, location of
 residence (state, county, and town), whether they own or rent their
 home, household composition, current assets and income, and their
access to telephones and the Internet.
description: Response Rates: For the total telephone sample, the response rate
 was 49.6 percent (measured by the accepted scientific standard set by
 the Council of American Survey and Research Organizations), and the
 refusal rate was 17.4 percent. Response and refusal rates vary from
community to community and cluster to cluster.
description: Sampling was conducted at the household level with sample
 sizes in each of the 12 clusters large enough to ensure within-cluster
 margins of error no higher than 5 percent. Telephone numbers were
 selected randomly from each of the 36 communities, with the goal of
 having the number of interviews by community within the clusters be
 closely proportional to the proportions within the cluster. According
 to the primary investigator, the sampling methodology for the Western
 Washington supplemental mail-back survey somewhat complicates the
 issues discussed in the Final Report. Please refer to the
 "Methodology" and "Appendix" sections in the "Final Report" section of
the ICPSR codebook for further details.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: All Horizons Communities, Public-Use
DS2: All Horizons Communities, Restricted-Use
description: Adults aged 18 and older living in 36 Horizon communities
 (selected by the Northwest Area Foundation) in the Northwestern region
 of the United States in the following states: Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota,
Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington. Smallest Geographic Unit: town
description: computer-assisted telephone interview; mail questionnaire(1) More information about the Northwest Area
 Foundation can be found online at http://www.nwaf.org/. (2) The
 following variables are only available in the restricted-use version
 of the collection: LEAD7, AGE, RACEFUL, RELIG1AF, RELIG1B, RELIG1BF,
 EMPLOY2F, ENDING5, INTOBS, INTOBS2, FIPS, and TRIBE2. (3) Responses to
 open-ended questions can be found in the Open-End PDF file. (4) Two
 different collection modes were used: computer-assisted telephone
 interview (CATI) survey and supplemental mail-back survey. Although
 the data collection instruments are not exactly the same, they share
 many questions and response categories. Please note that much of the
 data corresponds more closely to the wording of questions and response
 categories in the CATI instrument. (5) Excel charts are being provided
 by the data producer for further reference. (6) In the mail-back
 questionnaire, the "NO OPINION" responses were recoded as "DON'T KNOW"
 in the final dataset. (7) Respondents coded 1 'YES, LIVE IN COMMUNITY'
 and 2 'NO -- DON'T LIVE IN COMMUNITY, BUT CLOSE ENOUGH' for variable
 QAL11 (CENTRAL WASHINGTON CLUSTER SCREENER) are also coded as 11
 'Q11=WA East' for the variable QUOTAVAR (Horizons Cluster). Please
 note that the Final Report has this cluster labeled as "Washington
 East," and the Cluster Reports have it labeled as "Central
 Washington." (8) PHONE2, URB_RUR2, SCREEN1, and SCREEN3 are in the
 NWAF codebook but are not present in the dataset. (9) QUOTAVAR: This
 variable appears to have a discrepancy in the total number of
 respondents for the Western Washington cluster for which there is no
 clear explanation. (10) The skip patterns have been checked for
 consistency by ICPSR, however there are several cases that were
 allowed to respond to questions they should have skipped. Please refer
 to #21 of the processing notes in the ICPSR codebook for further
 details. (11) Some variables in the data show sysmis for which there
 is no clear explanation. (12) The totals of respondents for the North
 Dakota cluster in the dataset and the final report do not match. The
 total of respondents in the dataset is 277, the final report shows the
total to be 274.