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Conducting the surveyThe 2,800 randomly selected households received mailings beginning on August 1, 2022 and the survey remained open for sevenweeks. The first mailing was a postcard inviting the household to participate in the survey. The next mailing contained a coverletter with instructions, the survey questionnaire, and a postage-paid return envelope.About 4% of the 2,800 mailed invitations or surveys were returned because the household address was vacant or the postalservice was unable to deliver the survey as addressed. Of the remaining 2,680 households that received the invitations toparticipate, 582 completed the survey, providing an overall response rate of 22%. The response rate was calculated usingAAPOR’s response rate #2* for mailed surveys of unnamed persons.It is customary to describe the precision of estimates made from surveys by a “level of confidence” and accompanying“confidence interval” (or margin of error). A traditional level of confidence, and the one used here, is 95%. The 95% confidenceinterval can be any size and quantifies the sampling error or imprecision of the survey results because some residents’ opinionsare relied on to estimate all residents’ opinions. The margin of error for the City of St. Anthony survey is no greater than plus orminus four percentage points around any given percent reported for all respondents (582 completed surveys).In addition to the randomly selected “probability sample” of households, a link to an online open participation survey waspublicized by the City of St. Anthony Village. The open participation survey was identical to the probability sample survey withtwo small updates; it asked a question to confirm the respondent was a resident and a question about where they heard aboutthe survey. The open participation survey was open to all city residents and became available on September 5, 2022. The surveyremained open for two weeks. The data presented in the following tabs exclude the open participation survey data, but a tab atthe end provides the complete frequency of responses to questions by the open participation respondents.
<br />The survey datasets were analyzed using all or some of a combination of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), R,
<br />Python, and Tableau. For the most part, the percentages presented in the reports represent the “percent positive.” The percent
<br />positive is the combination of the top two most positive response options (i.e., excellent/good, very safe/somewhat safe,
<br />essential/very important, etc.), or, in the case of resident behaviors/participation, the percent positive represents the proportion
<br />of respondents indicating “yes” or participating in an activity at least once a month.
<br />On many of the questions in the survey respondents may answer “don’t know.” The proportion of respondents giving this reply is
<br />shown in the full set of responses included in the tab “Complete data”. However, these responses have been removed from the
<br />analyses presented in the reports. In other words, the tables and graphs display the responses from respondents who had an
<br />opinion about a specific item.
<br />Contact
<br />The City of St. Anthony Village funded this research. Please contact Nicole Miller of the City of St. Anthony Village at
<br />nicole.miller@savmn.com if you have any questions about the survey.
<br />Survey Validity
<br />See the Polco Knowledge Base article on survey validity at https://info.polco.us/knowledge/statistical-vali
<br />* See AAPOR's Standard Definitions for more information at
<br />https://www.aapor.org/Publications-Media/AAPOR-Journals/Standard-Definitions.aspx
<br />* Pasek, J. (2010). ANES Weighting Algorithm. Retrieved from
<br />https://web.stanford.edu/group/iriss/cgi-bin/anesrake/resources/RakingDescription.pdf
<br />* Targets come from the 2010 Census and 2020 American Community Survey
<br />Unweighted Weighted Target*Age 18-3435-5455+Hispanic origin No, not Spanish, Hispanic, or LatinoSpanish, Hispanic, or LatinoHousing tenure OwnRentHousing type AttachedDetachedRace & Hispanicorigin Not white aloneWhite alone, not Hispanic or LatinoSexManWomanSex/age Man 18-34Man 35-54Man 55+Woman 18-34Woman 35-54Woman 55+Analyzing the dataResponses from mailed surveys were entered into an electronic dataset using a “key and verify” method, where all responses areentered twice and compared to each other. Any discrepancies were resolved in comparison to the original survey form. Rangechecks as well as other forms of quality control were also performed. Responses from surveys completed on Polco weredownloaded and merged with the mailed survey responses.The demographics of the survey respondents were compared to those found in the 2010 Census and 2020 American CommunitySurvey estimates for adults in the City of St. Anthony Village. The primary objective of weighting survey data is to make thesurvey respondents reflective of the larger population of the community. The characteristics used for weighting were age, sex,race, Hispanic origin, housing type, and housing tenure. No adjustments were made for design effects. Weights were calculatedusing an iterative, multiplicative raking model known as the ANES Weighting Algorithm.* The results of the weighting scheme forthe probability sample are presented in the following table.NRC aligns demographic labels with those used by the U.S. Census for reporting purposes, when possible. Some categories (e.g.,age, race/Hispanic origin, housing type, and length of residency) are combined into smaller subgroups..MethodsSelecting survey recipientsAll households within the City of St. Anthony Village were eligible to participate in the survey. A list of all households within thezip codes serving St. Anthony Village was purchased from Go-Dog Direct based on updated listings from the United States PostalService. Since some of the zip codes that serve the City of St. Anthony Village households may also serve addresses that lieoutside of the community, the exact geographic location of each housing unit was compared to community boundaries using themost current municipal boundary file. Addresses located outside of the City of St. Anthony Village boundaries were removedfrom the list of potential households to survey. From that list, addresses were randomly selected as survey recipients, withmulti-family housing units (defined as those with a unit number) sampled at a rate of 53 compared to single family housingunits.An individual within each household was selected using the birthday method. The birthday method selects a person within thehousehold by asking the “person whose birthday has most recently passed” to complete the questionnaire. The underlyingassumption in this method is that day of birth has no relationship to the way people respond to surveys. This instruction wascontained in the introduction of the survey.
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