How the AP-NORC poll on long-term care was conducted
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll on long-term care was conducted from February 18 through April 9 by NORC at the University of Chicago, with funding from the SCAN Foundation.
It is based on landline and cellular telephone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,698 adults age 40 or older, including 403 California residents age 40 and over. Interviews included 1,117 respondents on landline telephones and 581 on cellphones.
Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.
Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.
As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population's makeup by factors such as age, sex, education, race and landline or cell phone use.
No more than 1 time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3.4 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled. For the California results, the margin of error is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.
There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.
The questions and results are available at http://www.longtermcarepoll.org