American life has never been more thoroughly documented. Across the country, sophisticated surveys and opinion polls collect an enormous volume of information about what Americans think. Responses to hundreds of thousands of questions provide a rich source of primary data about American life.
Beyond opinions, surveys are accumulating a large store of information about what Americans know and how that knowledge affects their behavior, such as the ways in which they have changed their sexual behavior because of AIDS or whether they ever drive after drinking.
Polling the Nations is an online database of public opinion polls containing the full text of 350,000 questions and responses from 14,000 surveys conducted by 700 polling organizations since 1986 in the U.S. and 80 other countries. Questions are individually indexed in one of 4,500+ topics and six search fields: topic, question text, universe, date, polling organization and response categories.
Polling the Nations provides researchers, scholars and students with information to review and compare not only opinions but also the behavior of people around the world, explaining what they do and why.
For a free trial, contact Cheryl Bradley (cbradley at wils.wisc.edu).