Blurred Borders - International Community Foundation

conduct surveys at the sites. Based on those that reported the zip code of their primary place of
residence (see map at right), it would appear that the project could be considered at least
somewhat successful in obtaining geographic distribution for survey participants.
In Tijuana, surveys were collected from a total of seven locations:
� Playas de Tijuana
� 2 locations in Zona Rio
� Col. 20 de Noviembre
� 5 y 10
� Cucapah
� El Florido
Although these 7 locations were spread broadly across the city of Tijuana at well-trafficked
commercial areas, the results do not likely represent the poorest citizens of Tijuana but more the
lower-middle to upper income strata. A map with locations noted is forthcoming.
Originally, the plan had been to focus the San Diego surveys on grocery store and shopping mall
locations. During the survey time period, however, the continuing grocery workers’ strike
resulted in a need to find alternative sites. In addition, some care had to be taken during the first
days of the surveys to avoid sites effected by the Fall 2003 fires, and the possible respiratory
effects on CBA’s survey crew.
Despite some initial challenges with the survey plan, CBA was able to collect approximately
200-250 surveys from each major region in San Diego County (South, Central, and North).
Attempts were made to keep sampling as random as possible, with survey crews trained to avoid
bias based on gender, physical characteristics, and expected language (all San Diego survey crew
members were bilingual in English and Spanish). Although not all bias could be avoided
(particularly in the project’s limiting of survey locations to a small number of public places in
various geographic ranges of Tijuana and San Diego County), systematic sampling (i.e.:
choosing every n th possible target) was used at each location to the best extent possible. In the
case of this project, every third person passing through well-trafficked areas was targeted at
various locations – refusals resulted in surveyors approaching the next immediate target until a
survey was successful.
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