The promises of the General Social Survey (GSS) as a research platform for evaluating well-being benefits from the natural environment

摘要

The General Social Survey is the largest and longest-running project supported by the Sociology Program of the National Science Foundation. Since 1972 it has monitored societal change in the United States with annual or biennial national, full-probability in-person samples of adults living in households. Starting in 1982 it has had a cross-national component. In 1984 it co-founded the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) and the ISSP has conducted an annual cross-national studies since 1985. Sixty countries have participated in the ISSP. In recent years the GSS pioneered in developing the multi-level, multi-source (MLMS) study design. MLMS augments survey data by adding in information from other sources about the housing unit, neighborhood, and community that respondents reside in. This includes socio-demographic data from the census and ACS, socio-economic information from commercial databases, and much other data from a multitude of sources (e.g. election return, crime statistics, educational facilities, etc.). Existing MLMS information can be further augmented with data about the environment, land use, proximity to features in nature, etc. Both the wide ranging content of the GSS and the auxiliary data from MLMS can complement survey questions asking about the natural environment and assess both object and subjective factors that shape attitudes about the natural environment and the impact that the natural environment has on health and well-being.