Make Yourself Heard: Weldon Cooper’s Center for Survey Research Is All Ears

Find the latest information on the University’s response to the coronavirus here.

How is your neighbor doing? What about your neighbor’s neighbor?

How are policymakers and local agencies in your town planning for the future?

Knowing the answers is vital as people in and around Charlottesville try to adapt to a different way of life that has been necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We all want to know how we all are doing,” said Tom Guterbock, academic director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Survey Research.

Since 2018, Guterbock’s team at UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service has worked diligently to make BeHeardCVA a tool for the region’s citizens to communicate about issues that are important to them.

Anyone age 18 or older from Charlottesville and Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson counties can sign up for the panel at beheardcva.org. There’s no cost to join and participants have chances to win gift certificates.

Last month, Guterbock orchestrated a survey through BeHeardCVA that provided the community with much-needed data.

He has another survey in the works that is scheduled to launch Tuesday. Panel members may choose to participate online or by phone.

During this crisis, the Cooper Center has waived all fees for local agencies wanting to put specific questions on the survey.

“There may be no time better than now for the community to engage in this effort,” said Larry Terry, executive director of the Weldon Cooper Center. “While we are all still learning about how the pandemic is impacting us all, the information gained from the second survey can provide our local leaders and service providers with another layer of data, giving them a better understanding on how to respond to our area’s rapidly changing needs appropriately.

“This kind of public-impact research will remain at the forefront of the Weldon Cooper Center’s focus on supporting local governments and communities during this public health crisis, and we are proud to work with leaders and organizations across sectors in order to contribute to the commonwealth’s recovery.”

To learn how the first survey went and to hear about the next one, UVA Today caught up with Guterbock.

Q. For those who may not be that familiar with it, how does BeHeardCVA work?

A. BeHeardCVA is a regional survey panel. That means people sign up who are willing to take surveys now and then on different subjects that are important for our community. We have recruited for the panel through random mailings and phone calls to area households and also through community events and stories in local media.

Q. What was the main objective of the first coronavirus impact survey you did?

A. The survey that we did at the end of March was a first look at how people are impacted by the virus – what they’re doing to manage social distancing and how much they trust different sources of information about the pandemic.

Q. Looking at the results of that survey, what jumped out at you?

A. We asked people to judge the actions of the federal government, state government and local government in response to the pandemic. Most were favorable with regard to Virginia’s actions and much less favorable in looking at the federal government. I think that was a noticeable difference. I was surprised at how much more it was favorable toward Virginia.

It was also good to see that a vast majority of people were washing their hands, staying inside and taking the other steps that we’ve all been told to do.

Q. What kind of feedback from the community have you received after releasing the results of the survey?

A. When we sent the results of the survey back out to our participants, we asked them for their ideas for what we should be asking about and got more than 300 responses.

One clear theme is that people are wondering what will life be like after the shutdown and when will things open up again. They’re very concerned about economic consequences and everyone is interested to know whether some people are leaving their homes now or are staying home.

Q. Specifically, how will this second survey differ from the first? Can you give some examples of the types of questions you will be asking?

A. Our next survey will repeat some of the questions. For example, asking if people have lost hours of work or lost their job, but we’ll also have some new questions about policy issues that may arise as the shutdown orders are changed.

In preparation for this survey, we also reached out to several local agencies and non-profits who suggested issues they wanted us to ask about. For example, the health department wants us to find out who owns a mask, and if we find that there’s a shortage, then that’s something they can act on.

Q. In this survey, you’ll be trying to expand the reach and diversity of the panel and seeking more representation from residents of Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson counties. Were you not satisfied with the representation you had the first time around?

A. We’re always seeking to broaden the reach of our survey panel. We have broadly represented the region, but we would like to have more participation from rural areas and younger respondents.

We’re transparent about our makeup. We publish the makeup of the panel right on our website. We’re very committed to broad representation.

Q. What have been the biggest challenges with these surveys?

A. The biggest issue with this one is that people have so many questions that they want to ask that we can’t fit them all on one survey. So our biggest problem has been cutting it down to a manageable size. We’ve tried to focus on issues that are actionable or informative for decision-makers.

For example, several people are asking, “Under what circumstances would you go to a concert or a sports arena with a large crowd of people? Are you ready to do that now or do you want to wait until there is a vaccine or there are no cases? What is it going to take for us to go back to the way things were before, to stop social distancing?” There are a lot of organizations and people who want to know that. That will help them in planning. They need to know what people around here are thinking about that issue.