One-third of Cuyahoga County adults still do not have broadband Internet access in their homes, according to the results of an October 2012 phone survey of 1,261 county residents commissioned by the Connect Your Community Project.

The survey, conducted by a team from the University of Iowa, the University of Illinois and Rutgers University, found that majorities of the county’s senior citizens, the poor, and people with “educational attainment” of high school graduation or less are among the disconnected. It also found that African-American residents are significantly less likely to have high-speed home or mobile Internet access than County residents as a whole.

Here’s a sample of the survey’s findings. (The margin of error is +/- 2.8%.)

You can download a summary of these and other key findings here.

Or, download the full survey report.

In addition to Cuyahoga County residents as a whole, the survey report looks at a “subsample” of 686 respondents who live in the city of Cleveland and nine adjacent municipalities with significant levels of household poverty, indicated by Ohio Directions Card participation by 25% or more of their households.

43% of adults in these “Inner Core” communities lack home broadband service, including
71% of those with household income below $20,000,
67% of those 65 and older, and
75% of those without high school diplomas.

Combined with recent U.S. Census data, the survey’s findings indicate that about 360,000 of the county’s adult residents lack home broadband connections, including 190,000 in Cleveland and the adjacent Inner Core communities.

The study’s principal researchers, Dr. Caroline Tolbert of the University of Iowa and Dr. Karen Mossberger of Arizona State University, have collaborated on several important studies of the digital divide. (The most recent is Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity.) CYC Assistant Project Director Samantha Schartman worked with them to design the Cuyahoga County survey, which was conducted by Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute.

Read the Plain Dealer’s coverage of the CYC Cuyahoga County internet survey.