03/25/2026: Surveying California’s Working-Age Population: Methods, Gaps, and Policy Implications

Photos of Ed Yelin, PhD; Todd Hughes, MS; Mark Baldassare PhD; and Victor Rubin, MCP, PhD

About the webinar:

Accurately characterizing the welfare of California’s working-age population is more important than ever. This webinar will examine how survey researchers are adapting their sampling methods to reach key populations, review a range of sampling strategies, and identify methodological limitations and gaps. Panelists will also discuss strategies for engaging policymakers to ensure survey findings are relevant and actionable.

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this activity, the learner will be able to:

  • Describe various strategies for sampling California’s working-age population

  • Identify gaps in the ability to reach target populations

  • Outline strategies to translate survey research findings into policy

Speaker: Ed Yelin, PhD

Dr. Yelin has been researching the interaction between work and health for many decades, initially focusing on how people with health problems maneuver through the labor market, more recenting emphasizing the effect of new ways of hiring on the health and welfare of the working age population. Dr. Yelin, an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, is the Director of the California Labor Laboratory, a NIOSH Center of Excellence in Total Worker Health.

Speaker: Todd Hughes, MS

Todd Hughes is the director of the California Health Interview Survey (or CHIS), which is housed at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and which was awarded the 2024 American Association for Public Opinion Research Inclusive Voices Award, which recognizes important research that has improved the ability to study complex social phenomena related to understudied populations. As director, Todd manages all survey operations, works to develop new methodologies to ensure the CHIS represents California’s diverse population, and leverages the CHIS to support follow-on studies of special topics and subpopulation groups, in collaboration with researchers across the U.S. Prior to his tenure at UCLA, Todd spent 20 years as an employee of the U.S. Census Bureau, starting as a face-to-face survey interviewer while studying statistics, and later spending many years on the management team of the nationwide American Community Survey.

Speaker: Mark Baldassare, PhD

Mark Baldassare is statewide survey director and the Miller Chair in public policy at the Public Policy Institute of California. Previously, he also served as president and CEO, director of research, and senior fellow at PPIC. He is a leading expert on public opinion and survey methodology, and has directed the PPIC Statewide Survey since its founding in 1998. He is an authority on elections, voter behavior, and political and fiscal reform, authoring ten books, including, The Coming Age of Direct Democracy: California’s Recall and Beyond, A California State of Mind: The Conflicted Voter in a Changing World, and When Government Fails: The Orange County Bankruptcy and numerous articles and reports on these topics. He often provides testimony before legislative committees and state commissions. Before joining PPIC, he was a professor of urban and regional planning in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, where he held the Johnson Chair in Civic Governance. He has conducted surveys for the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the California Business Roundtable. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Moderator: Victor Rubin, MCP, PhD

Victor Rubin is a consultant to the California Labor Laboratory on policy opportunities arising from the research. He retired in 2022 from PolicyLink, a national nonprofit institute advancing equitable policy change where he had been Vice President for Research. He was a coauthor of Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-Sector Collaboration (2019, University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine/ArtPlace America) and guest editor of the 2019 special issue of the Community Development Innovation Review on arts and culture strategies. He coauthored the 2018 PolicyLink report for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Counting a Diverse Nation: Disaggregating Data on Race and Ethnicity to Advance a Culture of Health. He has been an advisor to the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Architects on health and the built environment and on social equity. Victor joined PolicyLink in 2000 after serving as Director of the HUD Office of University Partnerships. He was Adjunct Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, the department where he earned his MCP and PhD. He serves on the Advisory Council for the Center for Community Engagement of the University of California, San Francisco and the National Advisory Council for the RWJF Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Program.

Certificates of Completion

Certificates of Completion will be available to webinar participants who are present for the complete, live webinar, and logged in with their registered email address. Call-in attendees are not eligible for certificates at this time - Please download the Zoom app to log in via email on your smartphone whenever possible.

In order to receive your Certificate of Completion, qualified learners must complete the post-webinar evaluation within 7 days of the webinar. A link to the evaluation will be emailed to qualified learners 24 hours after the webinar via no-reply@zoom.us. Qualified learners who submit their evaluation will receive a Certificate of Completion via email, and can also print/save the certificate from their browser after submitting their evaluation.

If you're not able to attend the live presentation, no problem! We record most presentations and will host them on our website provided we have permission to do so. Presentation recordings are not eligible for Certificates of Completion.

About the California Labor Lab

The California Labor Lab is a collaboration among investigators at UCSF, UC Berkeley, and the California Department of Public Health. The Lab is housed at the Philip R Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF. Our mission is to extend the pursuit of health and safety for workers in traditional employment to those in a wide range of alternative arrangements in partnership with affected communities.

Click here to learn more about the Labor Lab.

ACCESSIBILITY:

If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) to fully participate in this event, please contact Will Bellamy at (510) 642-8365 or wbellamy@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail) with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.

ACCREDITATION

The Center for Occupational and Environmental Health designates this activity for a maximum of 1.0 Contact Hour. Participants should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.