Understanding America Study

The Understanding America Study (UAS) is a panel of households at the University of Southern California (USC) of approximately 12,000 respondents representing the entire United States. The study is an ‘Internet Panel,’ which means that respondents answer our surveys on a computer, tablet, or smart phone, wherever they are and whenever they wish to participate.

Right now the USC Center for Economic and Social Research's Understanding Coronavirus in America tracking survey is following the attitudes and behaviors around the Novel Coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Go to the Understanding Coronavirus in America site or explore the survey questions, topline data, and data files here. A webinar on the UAS Covid-19 data is available here (or download the slides here).

We also tracked the U.S. 2020 Presidential Election both pre and post-election. Go to the 2020 USC Dornsife Presidential Election Poll site or explore the survey questions, topline data, and data files here.

In general, surveys are designed by research teams around the world; programmed and tested by our team at the Center for Economic and Social Research, translated into Spanish and then fielded.

A majority of the UAS data is publicly available. An excellent start is the UAS Comprehensive File, which merges the data from a number core surveys in the UAS that are repeated every two years. To explore the UAS data in an interactive manner check out the UAS Visualization Toolkit (opens in a new window).

Interested in getting access to the UAS Data? Register here now!

For any other inquiries, please write to us!