Puerto Rico Public Opinion Lab

The Puerto Rico Public Opinion Lab | Laboratorio Puertorriqueño de Opinión Pública

Amplifying the Voice and Representation of Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Public Opinion Lab (PR-POL) is a project that aims to amplify the voice and political representation of people living in Puerto Rico. Specifically, we are designing and administering the first panel survey of a large, representative sample of Puerto Ricans living on the island. Using this survey infrastructure, we are collecting, analyzing and disseminating information on Puerto Rican experiences and attitudes toward a range of policies. In doing so, we will accomplish two goals. We will help build the local research infrastructure that equips Puerto Rican students and faculty with tools that will help to hold local and federal government bodies accountable. Equally notable, we will provide the public and policymakers alike with high quality data on the experiences, perspectives and desires of people in Puerto Rico to ensure that their voices are no longer dismissed or ignored.

The development of this infrastructure at UPR will be instrumental to fostering new research on and knowledge about public attitudes, preferences, and priorities among the island’s population at a critical juncture in its political and economic history. The lack of representative data on Puerto Rican public opinion has long inhibited scholarship on the development and future of Puerto Rican institutions. The provision of high-quality public opinion data will help ensure that the voices of island residents– individuals without a voice in the governing institutions that serve as the ultimate authority in their political lives– are heard.

News Coverage

UPR-Río Piedras Social Research Center will host the new Public Opinion Laboratory in Puerto Rico, from Foro Noticioso
THE UPR-RÍO PIEDRAS CREATES THE PUERTO RICAN PUBLIC OPINION LABORATORY, from Sin Comillas
Negotiations begin to create the Puerto Rican Public Opinion Laboratory, from Metro

Investigators

Mara Cecilia Ostfeld;

Mayra Vélez Serrano (Co-PI), Universidad de Puerto Rico – Río Piedras
Luis Raúl Cámara Fuertes (Co-PI), Universidad de Puerto Rico – Río Piedras
Viviana Rivera Burgos (Co-Investigator), Baruch College
Ignangeli Salinas Muniz (Graduate Student Fellow), University of Michigan
Franshelly Martinez Ortiz (Graduate Student Fellow), University of Michigan

Funding

The National Science Foundation’s Build and Broaden Program University of Michigan: Poverty Solutions University of Michigan: OVPR Anti-Racism Grant Fundación Puerto Rico

Project Period

2020-present

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