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.

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.