A majority of Americans living in "fragile" communities say they have confidence in the police who monitor their neighborhood streets, according to a new survey reported by The Associated Press.

The State of Opportunity in America survey, released Sunday, found that more than 70 percent of Americans who live in these struggling communities said they have some or a lot of confidence in their local police, according to the report.

Even more people from such communities, 86 percent, say they had some or a lot of respect for the police who monitor the areas surrounding their home.

Executive Director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity Gerard Robinson told the AP that “fragile” is a better term than "disadvantaged" or "at-risk" to describe areas with limited upward mobility and opportunities.

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“You’re not so much talking about a person or a people, but a situation,” Robinson told the news wire.

The findings of the survey came from 6,000 completed surveys out of the 28,000 mailed out to people in both rural and urban areas in the U.S., according to the report.

Conducted last year between May and August, the survey seeks to examine the relationship between police and such communities. The findings revealed differences along racial and ethnic lines.

Thirty-nine percent of black residents in so-called fragile communities said they had little to no confidence in their local police, a number that was greater than Hispanic or white residents, who polled at 26 percent and 21 percent, respectively. A similar split occurred in regard to respecting the local police, with 19 percent of black residents saying they had little or no respect for the police, compared with 11 percent of white residents and 9 percent of Hispanic residents.

“One of the great things about this report is that it broadens the narrative of what people in fragile communities think about the police,” Robinson said.