NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — An annual survey conducted by Old Dominion University is shedding light on how some Hampton Roads residents feel about life in the region.
The university’s Social Science Research Center has released this study every year since 2010.
Nearly 800 residents are randomly selected to fill out the survey in all of the seven cities.
Parts of the report are being released each week. So far, sections on “Quality of Life,” “Education & Public Schools,” and “Health and Experiences with Covid and Vaccines.”
“We think it’s an important gauge for what people think life is like here in Hampton Roads. There’s a number of measures for quality of life or ratings of best cities to live in that are based on economic data, census data, employment data,” said Dr. Tancy Vandercar-Burdin, director of the Social Science Research Center. “We’re directly engaging with the community and asking what they think about life in the community.”
The survey was completed last summer and fall. According to the report, about two-thirds of the respondents rated the quality of life in the region as excellent or good but that’s slightly dropped one to two percent since 2017.
Vandercar-Burdin believes COVID-19 has had an impact on these responses and says responses also vary depending on cities.
“Cities like Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Hampton are rating the quality of life in their city or region higher than cities like Newport News,” she said.
Different factors can also go into these ratings such as poverty, housing, unemployment, and crime, according to Vandecar-Burdin.
While Quality of Life for the region has decreased among the answers, quality of life in their cities is more favorable and even higher among neighborhoods.
The survey also asked respondents about “Education and Public Schools.”
According to the report, about 60 percent of the parents with children in school indicated their child received either much worse or a bit worse education than prior to the pandemic.
Vandercar-Burdin says parents responded saying their children had problems focusing and many lacked the motivation to complete schoolwork.
Mental health concerns were also another issue.
“About one in five parents indicated their children were having issues around that. It’s another indicator of how people are handling life currently during these particularly challenging times to understand what your neighbors are going through,” she said.
When it came to COVID-19 and vaccines, one in five respondents answered they personally knew someone who died from COVID-19 with half knowing someone who had been ill but not seriously.
Vandercar-Burden says surveys like this are needed to know what people are struggling with and hope it can help make changes.
“Hopefully that gives some direction to political leaders, elected officials, who can make some changes to the quality of life and reaching certainly, that’s what we’d like to see,” she said.
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