Results for this study are based on telephone interviews conducted by Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS), an independent research company, among a nationally representative sample of 1,220 Latino respondents ages 18 and older, from November 9 through December 7, 2011. Of those respondents, 492 were native born (including Puerto Rico), and 728 were foreign born (excluding Puerto Rico). Of the foreign born, 299 are U.S. citizens, 261 are legal residents and 140 are not citizens and not legal residents. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

For this survey, SSRS maintained a staff of bilingual interviewers who, when contacting a household, were able to offer respondents the option of completing the survey in Spanish or English. A total of 674 (55%) respondents were surveyed in Spanish, and 546 (45%) respondents were interviewed in English. Any person ages 18 or older of Latino origin or descent was eligible to complete the survey.

To address concerns about coverage, the study employed a dual-frame landline/cellphone telephone design. The sample consisted of a landline component (n = 617) and a cellphone component (n = 603).8 Both the landline and cellphone components consisted of a stratified sampling design, oversampling areas with higher densities of Latino residents.

For the landline sampling frame, the sample was run against InfoUSA and other listed databases, and phone numbers that matched to known Latino surnames were subdivided into a Surname stratum. The remaining, unmatched and unlisted landline sample was divided into the following mutually exclusive strata: Very High Latino, High Latino and Medium Latino.

MSG’s GENESYS sample generation system was used to generate cellphone sample, which was divided into High and Medium Latino strata. Overall, the study employed eight strata.

Samples for the low-incidence landline and cell strata were drawn based on responses to SSRS’s weekly dual-frame Excel omnibus survey. Respondents who indicated they were Latino on the omnibus survey were eligible to be recontacted for the present survey.

It is important to note that the existence of a surname stratum does not mean this was a surname sample design. The sample is RDD, with the randomly selected telephone numbers divided by whether they were found to be associated with or without a Spanish surname. This was done simply to increase the number of strata and thereby increase the ability to meet ethnic targets and ease administration by allowing for more effective assignment of interviewers and labor hours.

A five-stage weighting design was used to ensure an accurate representation of the national Hispanic population.

  • An adjustment was made for all persons found to possess both a landline and a cellphone, as they were twice as likely to be sampled as were respondents who possessed only one phone type.
  • The sample was corrected for a potential bias associated with recontacting respondents in the low-incidence landline and cell strata.
  • The sample was corrected for the likelihood of within-household selection, which depended upon the likelihood that the respondent’s age group would be selected, and that within that age group, the particular respondent would be selected.
  • The sample was corrected for the oversampling of telephone number exchanges known to have higher densities of Latinos and the corresponding undersampling of exchanges known to have lower densities of Latinos.

Finally, the data were put through a post-stratification sample balancing routine. The post-stratification weighting utilized national 2011 estimates from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, March Supplement, on gender, age, education, census region, heritage, years in the U.S., and phone status (i.e., cellphone only, cellphone mostly, mixed/landline only/landline mostly).9