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.

The Washington Post today cited Research Analyst Gregory Holyk’s work on attitudes toward the United Nations, citing Greg’s “meticulously catalogued” article on the subject in the spring 2010 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow made extensive use of our ABC News/Washington Post polling data and analysis in this op-ed on the gap between Barack Obama’s favorability and job approval ratings, particularly among single men.

Recent presentations by Gary Langer have included invited lectures at Duke University on April 18, co-hosted by the Duke Initiative on Survey Methodology and the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy; on March 29 to the Research+Analytics division of ESPN, on data quality in survey research; on March 27 to graduate students in journalism at the City University of New York; and on Feb. 7 to the national reporting class at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Our latest ABC/Post poll has been picked up by the American Bar Association Journal, Bloomberg, The Chicago Tribune, CNN, Fox News,The Hill, The Los Angeles Times, The National Journal, New York Daily News, PBS, Politico, Salon, and Vanity Fair, among others.

D3 Systems and the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research today released the second wave of their ongoing Afghan Futures project, examining the course of public attitudes in Afghanistan on issues including security, political sentiment and women’s rights. The latest results find a growing sense that the Taliban have become more moderate and broad support for a negotiated settlement – even if that means ceding government control of some provinces. Langer Research Associates analyzed the data and wrote the report, available here.

Coverage of our latest ABC/Post favorability poll looking at the popularity of four tech giants – Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter – includes stories at AppleInsider, The Atlantic, Bloomberg’s Tech Blog, CNET, CNN, Huffington Post, MediaBistro, TechNewsWorld and ZDNet.

Hear Gary Langer’s discussion today of the results of the latest Republican presidential primaries on Public Radio International’s “To the Point” with Warren Olney, here.

Blue Shield of California Foundation has published a series of issue briefs prepared by Langer Research Associates reporting on health care experiences and attitudes among poor and near-poor Californians. The four briefs elaborate on findings from our full report, “On the Cusp of Change: The Healthcare Preferences of Low-Income Californians,” published by the Foundation in June 2011.

One issue brief focuses on views among patients of Community Clinics and Health Centers in the state; another, on public clinic patients; and a third, on the private patient population. The fourth brief analyzes key differences across regions of the state. See them here.

Results of the full “On the Cusp of Change” study have been widely discussed by healthcare providers and policy makers in California and beyond as traditional safety net providers prepare for the new health care marketplace under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Langer Research Associates and our field work partner, Social Science Research Solutions, will present our approach to the sampling challenges the study raised, as well as an overview of findings, at the annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research in Orlando, Florida, in May.