This seventeenth Orange County Annual Survey continues to track trends over time in the county's important social, economic and political issues. This year, there is a special focus on understanding the impacts of incresing urbanization and the changing demographics of Orange County. The sample size is 1,000 Orange County adult residents.
Online data analysis & additional documentation in Link below.

The 1998 Orange County Annual Survey was co-directed by Mark Baldassare, professor at UCI and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, and Cheryl Katz, research associate. The random telephone survey included interviews with 2,002 Orange County adult residents conducted Sept. 1-13, 1998. We follow the methods used in the 16 previous surveys, with two exceptions. This year, we doubled the sample size of the Orange County Annual Survey, which is usually about 1,000 interviews, so that we could expand our analysis of the Latino and Asian populations. We also conducted interviews in Vietnamese as well as in English and Spanish.
Interviewing was conducted on weekend days and weekday nights, using a computer-generated random sample of telephone numbers. Within a household, adult respondents were randomly chosen for interview. Each interview took an average of 20 minutes to complete. The interviewing was conducted in English, Spanish or Vietnamese, as needed. The completion rate was 74 percent. The telephone interviewing was conducted by Interviewing Services of America in Van Nuys, CA.
The survey sample was compared with the U.S. Census and state figures by city for Orange County, and was found to represent the actual regional distribution of Orange County residents. The sample's demographic characteristics also were closely comparable to the census and other survey data, including previous Orange County Annual Surveys.
The sampling error for this survey is +/2% at the 95% confidence level. This means that 95 times out of 100, the results will be within two 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 also be affected by question wording, ordering, and survey timing.
Throughout the report, we refer to two geographic regions. North County includes Anaheim, Orange, Villa Park, La Habra, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, Placentia, Yorba Linda, La Palma, Cypress, Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Seal Beach, Westminster, Midway City, Stanton, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Tustin, Tustin Foothills and Costa Mesa. South County includes Newport Beach, Irvine, Lake Forest, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, Portola Hills, Rancho Santa Margarita, Foothill Ranch, Coto de Caza, Trabuco Highlands, El Toro Station, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, San Clemente, Capistrano Beach and San Juan Capistrano. In the analysis of questions on the proposed El Toro airport, we include Newport Beach in North County.