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Pittsburgh Regional Quality of Life Survey
2018

Seven years ago, we released the findings of the Pittsburgh Regional Quality of Life Survey, the most extensive survey of Greater Pittsburgh residents since the historic Pittsburgh Survey of 1908. The intent was to understand the attitudes and circumstances of the region's citizens then and, by revisiting the questions later, to determine how their views change over time.

The 2018 Pittsburgh Regional Quality of Life Survey, conducted in June by the University of Pittsburgh University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) and PittsburghTODAY, asked many of the same questions that were posed in 2011, in addition to a few new ones.

The 2018 update was a web-based survey. Participants were drawn from members of the UCSUR Research Registry living in Allegheny County, southwestern Pennsylvania's urban core. Some 1,881 residents completed the survey. Data were adjusted for age, sex, race, education, income, and political affiliation to make the sample representative of the county population aged 18 and older. Their responses are compared to those of 799 Allegheny County residents who took the 2011 survey, which was a telephone survey. Use of weighted data allows for comparing trends over time. A detailed description of the methodology is found in the appendix of this report.

The findings are contained in seven data sets, which allow for comparing responses across age, gender, income, race, education and geography.

We believe the 2018 Pittsburgh Regional Quality of Life Survey and its predecessor provide information valuable both as historic documents and as a guide to inform decisions about the region's future. And we plan to repeat the survey in later years to measure progress toward improving the quality of life in the region.

Full Report

Detailed Data Tables

The following series of files (PDF format) present the survey methods used for the study and detailed question-by-question results of the survey for Allegheny County and five key socio-demographic variables (sex, age, race, education, and income).

Each file contains both a navigation pane and clickable hyperlinks in the table of contents to allow for efficient searching by survey topic area. Each file also contains technical notes. 

  Survey Methods

  Allegheny County estimates

  Allegheny County - 2011 vs 2018 comparisons

  Allegheny County - City of Pittsburgh resident vs non-resident comparisons

  Allegheny County - Sex differences

  Allegheny County - Age differences

  Allegheny County - Race differences

  Allegheny County - Education differences

  Allegheny County - Income differences