2010 Census Awareness Daily Tracking Questions Plan

The Census Bureau plans to add questions to a daily tracking survey under the generic clearance for 2010 Census Communications Campaign Testing Activities (OMB 0607-0950). The purpose of the research is to provide the Census Bureau with continuous monitoring of public opinion surrounding the 2010 Census. The survey will provide continuous monitoring of public awareness, attitudes and opinion surrounding the 2010 Census and will yield daily covariates used to model likelihood of 2010 Census participation. The survey will begin in early December 2010 and continue until around April 22, 2010.

In the event that negative events occur that might influence Census behavior, the Census Bureau must be poised and ready to adjust on the fly. Such adjustments potentially include changes in the communications campaign, public relation strategies, messages communicated to partners, and other changes in operational aspects of the 2010 Census.

One way to effectively plan for such changes is to obtain a steady stream of public opinion data that is representative of the entire U.S. population. Paramount to this effort is the necessity to obtain measures of awareness and attitudes before the 2010 Census ramps up and the paid media campaign begins (January 1, 2010). Doing so allows for pre-campaign benchmarks, which are pivotal to calibrate future measures and track change over time. Without these benchmarks, the value and interpretation of later measures is severely diminished. After such benchmarks are obtained, it is critical to have in place a mechanism to constantly monitor fluctuations in attitudes and awareness.

The survey will contain a set of ten fixed questions to be repeated daily. The survey will also allow for the addition of up to two “hot button” questions that can be inserted on short notice. These questions will be inserted when/if newsworthy events occur involving the 2010 Census or the Census Bureau.

The ten survey questions will be added to an established public opinion tracking survey (the Gallup 2009 G1K Daily Tracking Survey). This survey is administered daily to a nationally representative probability sample of U.S. household members.

The specifications of the tracking survey are:

• The survey will begin on or about December 1st, 2009;

• The survey will run daily until April 22, 2010;

• The survey will reflect a national random probability sample of the U.S. population;

• The survey will be conducted using random-digit-dial telephone methodology;

• The survey will use a random selection method to select respondents in households containing more than one person;

• The interview protocol will include a multi-call design to reach respondents not contacted on the initial attempt;

• The sample frame will include both cell phone and landline phone numbers;

• The survey will conduct interviews in both English and Spanish;

• The sample size will be approximately 200 completed interviews per day;

• The sample will include cases in Alaska and Hawaii;

• The data will be weighted to match demographic targets from the U.S. Census Bureau including age, sex, region, gender, education, ethnicity, and race;

• The survey will include language to notify respondents that their information will not be made available in any way that would personally identify them; and

• No compensation will be provided to respondents.

Although the Gallup Daily Tracking Survey is portrayed as being nationally representative, it does not meet Census Bureau quality standards for dissemination and is not intended for use as precise national estimates or distribution as a Census Bureau data product. The Census Bureau will only use the results from this survey internally to monitor awareness and attitudes for the 2010 Census, and as an indicator of potential negative events or perceptions of the 2010 Census, and or as an indicator of potential changes in the communication campaign. Data from the research will be included in research reports prepared for sponsors inside the Census Bureau. In addition, results may be presented before external stakeholders at Census advisory committee meetings with the understanding that the data were produced for strategic and tactical decision making and not for official estimates. Research results may also be prepared for presentation at professional meetings or in publications in professional journals.

We estimate our portion of the interview will last 5 minutes. Assuming the survey runs continuously for 142 days at 200 interviews per day, we estimate a grand total of total of 28,400 respondents over the life of the survey. Thus, the total estimated burden hours for this research is 2,367 hours.

The ten tracking questions are in Attachment A.

The contact person for questions regarding this tracking survey is:

Nancy Bates

Senior Researcher for Survey Methodology

Office of the Director

(301) 763 –5248

[email protected]

Room 5K140

The contact person for the 2010 Census Communications Campaign Testing Activities generic clearance is:

Eric Newburger

Lead Researcher

Census 2010 Publicity Office

(301) 763-3649

[email protected]

Room 8H486F

Attachment A