Special Survey of Orange County 2004

Survey Methodology

The Orange County Survey is a special edition of the PPIC Statewide
Survey, which is directed by Mark Baldassare, research director at the
Public Policy Institute of California, with assistanc in research and
writing from Jon Cohen, associate survey director; Renatta DeFever and
Kristy Michaud, survey research associates; Kimberly Curry, survey
intern; and Cheryl Katz, who was the co-director of the Orange County
Annual Survey at the University of California, Irvine. The survey was
conducted in collaboration with the School of Social Ecology at the
University of California, Irvine; however, the survey methods,
questions, and the content of this report were solely determined by
Mark Baldassare.

The findings of this survey are based on a telephone survey of 1,008
Orange County adult residents interviewed from November 3 to November
9, 2004. Interviewing took place on weekend days and weekday nights,
using a computer-generated random sample of telephone numbers, ensuring
that both listed and unlisted telephone numbers were called. All
telephone exchanges in Orange County were eligible for calling.
Telephone numbers in the survey sample were called up to five times to
increase the likelihood of reaching eligible households. Once a
household was reached, an adult respondent (age 18 or older) was
randomly chosen for interviewing by using the ¡§last birthday method¡¨
to avoid biases in age and gender. Each interview took an average of 18
minutes to complete. Interviewing was conducted in English or Spanish.
Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas, Inc. conducted the telephone interviewing.

We used recent U.S. Census and state figures to compare the demographic
characteristics of the survey sample with characteristics of Orange
County¡¦s adult population. The survey sample was closely comparable to
the census and state figures. The survey data in this report were
statistically weighted to account for any demographic differences. The
sampling error for the total sample of 1,008 adults is +/- 3 percent at
the 95 percent confidence level. This means that 95 times out of 100,
the results will be within 3 percentage points of what they would be if
all Orange County adults were interviewed. The sampling error for
subgroups is larger. Sampling error is just one type of error to which
surveys are subject. Results may also be affected by factors such as
question wording, question order, and survey timing.

Throughout the report, we refer to two geographic regions. North County
includes approximately 71 percent of the county population and refers
to cities and communities north of the 55 Freeway, including Anaheim,
Anaheim Hills, Brea, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Cypress, Fountain Valley,
Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Habra, La Palma, Los
Alamitos, Midway City, Orange, Placentia, Rossmoor, Santa Ana, Seal
Beach, Stanton, Sunset Beach, Tustin, Villa Park, Westminster, and
Yorba Linda. South County includes 29 percent of the county population
and refers to cities and communities south of the 55 Freeway, including
Aliso Viejo, Capistrano Beach, Corona del Mar, Coto de Caza, Dana
Point, El Toro, Irvine, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel,
Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Modjeska, Newport Beach,
Portola Hills, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan
Capistrano, Trabuco, and Trabuco Canyon. We present results for
non-Hispanic whites (referred to in the tables and text as ¡§whites¡¨)
and Latinos because each group accounts for a substantial number of
the county¡¦s adult population. The sample sizes for the African
American and Asian American subgroups are not large enough for separate
statistical analysis. We also contrast the opinions of registered
Democrats, Republicans, and ¡§independents¡¨ (i.e., those who are
registered as ¡§decline to state¡¨).

In some cases, we compare the Orange County Survey responses to
responses in the 1982-2000 Orange County Annual Surveys at the
University of California, Irvine; the PPIC Statewide Surveys, including
the Special Survey of Orange County in 2001, 2002, and 2003 and the
Special Survey on Californians and their Housing in November 2004; and
the Index of Consumer Sentiment, Surveys of Consumer Attitudes, Survey
Research Center, University of Michigan (October 2004).