Americans age 40 and older with a prescription for a chronic condition get a troubling C+ grade for their medication adherence, according to a national survey released today by the National Community Pharmacists Association.

In addition to establishing non-adherence levels, the survey, produced for the NCPA by Langer Research Associates, identifies the key predictors of patients’ compliance with their medication instructions, including having a personal connection with pharmacy staff, affordability, continuity in health care, presence of side effects and awareness of the importance of taking medications as directed. The study proposes steps for pharmacists and health care providers to seek to reduce non-adherence, given its costs and health risks alike.

See the full report here.

The SCAN Foundation today released our analysis of a statewide survey of Californians’ attitudes on long-term care, finding state residents age 40 and up more concerned than their counterparts nationally about a range of aging issues and more supportive of government-led efforts to address long-term care options.

The state sample was produced by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research as part of its national survey on the topic, funded by the Foundation with Langer Research Associates consulting on the project. The Associated Press in April covered national results of the AP-NORC study; our new report contrasts attitudes in California with those nationally. A further, more detailed study by Langer Research modeling the predictors of planning for long-term care will be forthcoming.

Gary Langer presented on questionnaire design today at “Meet the Masters,” a daylong training session for survey researchers sponsored by the New York Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. See the presentation here.

Pickup of our survey with Kase Capital on J.C. Penney continues; latest is coverage in today’s Business Day section of The New York Times.

Langer Research Associates staff will participate in several presentations next week at the annual meetings of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the World Association for Public Opinion Research in Boston, on subjects ranging from politics to survey methodology to international development.

• Julie E. Phelan and Gary Langer will give a paper on their evaluation of whether to adjust a long-term trend-based survey, the 27-year-old Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, to include cell-phone and Spanish-language interviews. Links: paper and presentation.
• Greg Holyk, with Damla Ergun, Langer, Phelan and Seth Brohinsky and Dean Williams of Abt SRBI, will present on the continuation of the 2012 ABC News/Washington Post presidential election tracking poll in the aftermath of tropical storm Sandy. Link: presentation.
• Langer will present assessment data on civic engagement in Afghanistan produced in support of a USAID-funded program by Counterpart International (link: presentation), and separately will present polling analysis of the 2012 presidential election produced by Langer Research Associates for ABC News (link: presentation).
• Holyk will serve as a panelist at a WAPOR session on perceptions and implications of the ‘pivot to Asia’ in U.S. foreign policy.
• Led by Eran Ben-Porath of Social Science Research Solutions, Ergun, Langer and Holyk, with Jon Cohen and Scott Clement of Capital Insight, will offer a presentation on context effects in favorability questions in the 2012 presidential contest. Link: presentation.

Link: Main page for all presentations.

Langer Research Associates, in association with the hedge fund Kase Capital, has produced a nationally representative telephone survey on the attitudes of current and former J.C. Penney customers, measuring the extent of customer defections and the company’s prospects of winning them back. See our report here. (The survey’s been covered by in detail by IBD and ValueWalk, as well as pickup by Bloomberg andStreetInsider.)

The Associated Press reported today on a new national survey on long-term care from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, funded by The SCAN Foundation, the country’s leading nonprofit focused solely on long-term care for senior citizens. Langer Research Associates consulted with the foundation in initiating and carrying out the project, and will be producing additional data analysis. See the AP’s report here and the AP-NORC Center’s coverage here.

“Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead,” the new book by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, quotes a study lead-authored by Julie E. Phelan, senior research analyst at Langer Research Associates, during her doctoral work at Rutgers University.

Sandberg writes: “… a 2008 study by Phelan et al. examined the hiring criteria used to evaluate male and female agentic (highly competent, confident, ambitious) or communal (modest, sociable) managerial job applicants. The results found that evaluators ‘weighted competence more heavily than social skills for all applicants, with the exception of agentic women, whose social skills were given more weight than competence.’ The authors conclude that ‘evaluators shifted the job criteria away from agentic women’s strong suit (competence) and toward their perceived deficit (social skills) to justify discrimination.’”

Julie’s paper, “Competent Yet Out in the Cold: Shifting Criteria for Hiring Reflect Backlash Toward Agentic Women,” was published in theDecember 2008 issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly.

We’ve updated our briefing paper on using social media to estimate public opinion, including new research from the Pew Research Center, Coca-Cola Company, and others. See our report here, and our previous briefing paper on opt-in online panels here.

The (terrific) American Scholar magazine has published our letter to the editor on the niceties of reliable, representative public opinion research, including the question of what in fact constitutes a “poll.” See it here.

On ABC’s “This Week” program today, anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Cardinal Timothy Dolan about our ABC News/Washington Post poll finding that six in 10 American Catholics think the church is out of touch with their views. “Sometimes, by nature, the church has got to be out of touch with concerns, because we’re always supposed to be thinking of the beyond, the eternal, the changeless,” the cardinal replied, adding, “… sometimes there is a disconnect. … And that’s a challenge for us.” See ABC’s coverage of the interview here, and our poll report here. Beyond ABC and the Post, the poll’s been widely reported on outlets including CNN, MSNBC, USA Today, Agence France-Presse, the Huffington Post, Canada Free Press and as far afield as ABC-CBN News in the Philippines.