View in Vital Signs- Vibrant Human Quality of Life
- Cultural Wellbeing
- Indicator
- Participation in cultural practices
- Vital Sign Indicator
- Percent (%)
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No targets are currently set for this indicator.
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Kelly Biedenweg
- Contributing Partners
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- Last Updated
- 4/17/2020 4:32:39 PM
This indicator describes Puget Sound residents’ frequency of engagement in cultural practices. Cultural engagement is a key component of social identity and human wellbeing. This indicator will be important for assessing tradeoffs among potential recovery strategies and ensuring that strategies enhance cultural practices across diverse cultural groups.
- The majority (76%) of respondents said they participated in activities or traditions related to the environment that were important to their family or community.
- The mean participation in environmentally-based activities or traditions was 2.48, equating to between once a month and 1-4 times per year.
- Respondents from San Juan County tended to participate in activities or traditions related to the environment more frequently relative to those around them. Respondents from Snohomish, King, and Thurston counties tended to participate in such activities less frequently than those around them
- The temporal frequencies should be interpreted with caution, as many activities have low frequency of opportunities to participate but are exceedingly important to individuals (e.g., First Salmon Ceremonies that take place once a year.)
- Monitoring Program
- Data Source
Oregon State University Human Dimensions Lab
Data are collected every 2 years via paper survey to a random sample of Puget Sound households. The population chosen for this survey was a clustered random sample of Puget Sound residents, with an initial sample of 9,000. Due to undeliverable addresses, the total sample reached was 8,261 individuals. The response rate was 28 percent for a total of 2,323 individual responses. Results are reported as the frequency that Puget Sound residents engaged in cultural traditions or activities over the past year.
About 75 percent of survey participants gave their cross-streets, which allowed mapping of human wellbeing metrics at a fine scale. The map above shows the location of each individual respondent. Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi* statistic) was used to visualize clusters of responses that were significantly higher (red, hot spots) and lower (blue, cold spots) relative to those around them.
- Critical Definitions
In this pilot data collection, we learned that Puget Sound residents perceived very diverse activities and traditions as relevant to this question. When asked to specify the types of activities they were thinking of when responding to their frequency of participation, almost 48% of respondents described outdoor recreation and ecotourism activities. About 37% described formal and informal family and community events such as Arbor Day, festivals, and community clean-ups. About 15% described environmental stewardship activities and 12% activities associated with property maintenance. A small percentage of respondents were considering Native American practices (6%), arts (4%), or spiritual or religious practices (2%).
While on average, all counties participated in cultural practices "rarely (1-4 times per year)" or "occasionally (once a month)", respondents from San Juan County tended to participate in activities or traditions related to the environment more frequently relative to those around them (red, hot spots in map above). Respondents from Snohomish, King, and Thurston counties tended to participate in such activities less frequently than those around them (blue, cold spots).
Based on prior studies identifying diverse interpretations of the term ‘cultural’ we elected to use a broader language for this first attempt to measure cultural practices. We still find a wide variety of interpretations of ‘traditions and activities’, some of which overlap with other Vital Signs (e.g., Outdoor Recreation and Sound Stewardship). Future iterations of the survey will likely focus on two aspects of this Vital Sign: 1) Perceived satisfaction with the ability to engage in environmentally-oriented cultural practices and 2) Participation in specific cultural practices such as Native American ceremonies, Spiritual or Religious practices, and environment art opportunities.
The Puget Sound Partnership believes in the transparency and accessibility of the data used to address progress measures. These data are provided by contributing partners to the Partnership and are made publicly available through the Puget Sound Info site. These data are available on an "as is" basis and the Partnership is not responsible for any errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. Please acknowledge the monitoring program and data source when using these data and obtain permission from the indicator lead to use these data in a publication.
- Human Wellbeing Survey 2018 Categorical Data
- Uploaded On
- 7/27/2020
- File Type
- Excel (XLSX)
- Description
- Results are presented for the subjective Human Wellbeing Vital Sign indicators. Data were collected via a survey to the general population of the Puget Sound Region in 2018. Please acknowledge the Oregon State University Human Dimensions Lab and Puget Sound Partnership when using these data.
- Reporting Instructions
| Name | |
|---|---|
| Response |
Never, Rarely (1-4 times a year), Occasionally (Once a month), Regularly (Once a week), Frequently (Almost Every Day)
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