Blue Shield of California Foundation has released “Empowerment and Engagement Among Low-Income Californians: Enhancing Patient-Centered Care,” a detailed report by Langer Research Associates on attitudes toward health care delivery among poor and near-poor residents of the state. Extending findings reported earlier this summer on patient connectedness and continuity, the new study explores the central role of information and communication in achieving the goals of patient-centered care, presenting a unique, data-driven model of patient engagement, with implications for policy and practice.

Based on a statewide, random-sample survey of 1,024 low-income Californians age 19 to 64, the survey finds that well-informed patients are much more likely than others to be confident about taking an active role in their care decisions, to feel comfortable asking questions of their care providers and to report that they understand their providers’ explanations. These elements – information, confidence, comfort asking questions and comprehension – are informed by the level of connectedness and continuity patients have with their care facility, and in turn predict patients’ engagement in healthcare decisions.

The report extends research initiated by BSCF in summer 2011 with its publication of “On the Cusp of Change: The Healthcare Preferences of Low-Income Californians,” and continued with this year’s reports. All are available via the Foundation’s website.

Coverage of the report includes pieces in CA Healthline and Modern Healthcare, and we presented the findings Oct. 12 at the annual meeting of the California Primary Care Association in Burlingame, Ca.

We’ve inaugurated our MoE Machine, an online margin-of-error calculator designed by Langer Research Associates to assist data producers and empower data consumers in computing margins of sampling error in survey results. The program reports the MoE for any sample size, as well as the differences in a single sample, or in two independent samples, needed to achieve statistical significance. It allows for the inclusion of the design effect caused by weighting, an element of sampling error often disregarded in publicly released surveys. See it here, or click MOE in the menu bar on our homepage.

Clients have asked our views on two areas of current interest in survey research – the use of social media to estimate public opinion, and the reliability of data produced from opt-in online panels of survey respondents. We summarize our conclusions, with extensive source references, in two new, publicly released briefing papers from Langer Research Associates – Social Media and Public Opinion and Opt-in Online Surveys.

June and July 2012: We’ve seen substantial news media pickup of our ongoing ABC News/Washington Post favorability polls, including(beyond ABC and the Post) recent mention in The Telegraph of London, Slate, Politico, The New York Times, The Des Moines Register, the Christian Science Monitor, The Hill, and the San Francisco Examiner, among many others.

Blue Shield of California Foundation today released “Connectedness and Continuity: Patient-Provider Relationships Among Low-Income Californians,” a survey produced by Langer Research Associates examining low-income Californians’ preferences in healthcare relationships and experiences with alternative models of care. Expanding on last year’s BSCF study, “On the Cusp of Change,” the survey reveals the importance of personal, ongoing healthcare relationships and demonstrates the extent to which new approaches, including team-based care and the increased use of technology, can achieve this connectedness, producing more satisfied and self-reliant patients beyond the confines of the traditional doctor-patient model. See Blue Shield of California Foundation’s news release here, and the full report here.

Businessweek’s Peter Coy explained our Bloomberg Consumer Confidence Index here, and our latest ABC News/Washington Post favorability report received coverage from The New York Times, the New York Post, The Hill and Huffington Post, among others.

Politico’s Mike Allen cited our analysis of the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll on the 2012 election as “the story that matters most today.” Beyond reporting by ABC and the Post, we’ve had other pickup of the poll this week in outlets including The Los Angeles Times, CNN, The National Journal, The Village Voice, Huffington Post, The New York Times and many others. Ron Brownstein of The National Journal dug in with his usual alacrity, here; and Gary Langer discussed the results on Public Radio International’s “To the Point” with Warren Olney, here.

D3 Systems and the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) today released the third wave of Afghan Futures, an ongoing national survey of public attitudes in Afghanistan, with analysis by Langer Research Associates. See the report here.

Langer Research Associates contributed four presentations to this year’s annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research in Orlando, Florida. Among them, Research Analyst Gregory Holyk and Eran Ben-Porath of Social Science Research Solutions presented “Sampling Low-Income Californians to Assess their Healthcare Preferences,” prepared by Research Analyst Julie Phelan with Holyk, Ben-Porath, Gary Langer and David Dutwin of SSRS. The paper presented our innovative approach to sampling the hard-to-reach population of Californians with incomes less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, as well as substantive findings of that project for Blue Shield of California Foundation.

Additionally, Langer presented “The 2012 Republican Primaries and the Campaign Ahead,” prepared with Research Analyst Damla Ergun, Holyk and Patrick Moynihan of Harvard University (see the National Journal coverage here); “Survey Standards in Academia: A Look Behind the Ivy” (at the luncheon meeting of the Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations); and “In Defense of Probability: Are the Times a’Changing?” Langer served as discussant at another AAPOR session, and Ergun and Holyk chaired sessions.

A May 15 piece in The Los Angeles Times cited Research Analyst Damla Ergun’s report on our ABC News/Washington Post poll on attitudes toward President Obama’s position on gay marriage. Recent coverage of our Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, meanwhile, includes this May 17 report on the investment website Seeking Alpha.