Strategic Communication

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Find in-depth reports and polls; create a free account to download survey data.

The Odum Institute included public opinion data from Harris Polls from as early as 1958, the National Network of State Polls collection, the Carolina Poll (1977–2005), Monmouth University Polling Institute polls (2011+), the Southern Focus Poll (1992–2001), and some USA Today polls (1984–1993).

The American National Election Studies (ANES), a collaboration between Stanford University and the University of Michigan, "produces high quality data on voting, public opinion, and political participation to serve the research needs of social scientists, teachers, students, policy makers and journalists who want to better understand the theoretical and empirical foundations of national election outcomes." Conducted biennially since 1952, the survey "gauges public sentiment on the political process, the role of government, and social and economic issues." This site permits download of the ANES datasets, many of which are also available through ICPSR and CISER.

"ASEP/JDS have been working together since 1990 to provide researchers in the social sciences with friendly and easy to use data bases, including both statistical data and survey data files. Over the years, ASEP/JDS has been archiving its survey data and has produced the necessary programs to make its Data Bank available for researchers, to be used in interactive mode on the internet. Finally, with support from the BBVA Foundation it has been possible to conclude a long process whose principal objective has been to offer an alternative to sociological investigation "on word of honour" (where data are not made available) by making survey datasets available to the research community." Includes Afrobarometer, East-Asian Barometer, Globalbarometer, the Spanish CIRES (Centre for Research on the Social Reality), the Spanish Immigrants Collection, Comparative Studies on Electoral Systems (CSES), Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estratégicos, European Values Study (EVS), and World Values Survey (WVS).

Accessto over 25 years of public opinion survey data, collected by major survey research firms in Canada. Contains hundreds of surveys including thousands of discrete items collected by major commercial Canadian firms dating back to the 1970s.

The GSS has been conducted since 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center. It measures attitudes toward social and public policy issues, economic status, political events, work, and family life. In addition to questions asked each year, topical modules are included on a rotating basis that focus on current issues such as gender equity, religious beliefs, and perception of work. The 1972-2004 file was released in September 2005. ICPSR maintains a GSS Data and Information Retrieval System (GSSDIRS) site that permits you to browse the codebook, select specific variables, and perform some online analyses on the cumulated 1972-2000 file. You may also select extracts for download.

"Health Poll Search is a searchable archive of public opinion questions on health issues that allows users to know what Americans think about health issues, as well as what Americans have thought about health issues over time. Health Poll Search is the result of a partnership between the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut. The Roper Center houses an archive of more than 350,000 public opinion questions dating back to 1935. The Health Poll Search archive covers 29 topics and more than 300 subtopics, and holds more than 60,000 questions on health issues from health care surveys that have included questions on health. These questions provide information on public perceptions of HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, health policy and health reform, Medicare and Medicaid, women's health, the uninsured, minority health, and children's health. Response percentages and source information are provided for all questions."

NORC is a national organization for research at the University of Chicago. From the home page you can access press releases on their recent studies. By selecting the "Projects" option, you will get detailed information on their many studies and surveys, including the General Social Survey. "NORC's projects fall into five major substantive areas: economics and population; education and child development; health survey, program and policy research; substance abuse, mental health, and criminal justice; and statistics and methodology."

An independent, nonpartisan resource on American public opinion covering politics, elections, current events, national security and other issues. Collects numerous polls from major news organizations.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) carries out research on public opinion on foreign policy and international issues by conducting nationwide polls, focus groups and comprehensive reviews of polling conducted by other organizations. PIPA is a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland.

This free site provided extensive information on current and controversial issues such as abortion and legal gaming, the family, education etc. Each segment has an overview, facts and trends, different perspectives, links to news stories, and results of public opinion polls.

This National Science Foundation biennial report to Congress provides "a broad base of quantitative information about U.S. science, engineering, and technology." The site includes reports from 1993 to the present. If you click on the "Survey Descriptions," you get background information on the various studies conducted, which includes information on the availability of data.

The Princeton Library's guide to Public opinion data, includes a state-by-state breakdown of open poll data.