The Observatory publishes reports each year on the state of the arts and culture in Southwest Pennsylvania. The goal is to provide timely and relevant data to inform planning, programming, policy-making and advocacy efforts. These reports include environmental scans of Socio-Demographics, Education, Economics, Politics, and Technology. Reports explore the local, state and national contexts in which these forces operate. The Observatory also provides financial analysis reports regarding types and sizes of cultural organizations and the trends they demonstrate.

A distinctive feature of the Observatory is its longitudinal scope. In addition to offering comparative situation analyses within and across disciplines, the Observatory uses longitudinal data to develop trend analyses and forecasts of future activity. These reports assist philanthropies, service organizations and governmental agencies in developing arts policies and programs.

Because of the depth and breadth of detail in the data collection process, the Observatory is able to perform these comparative analyses across a wide variety of variables, including, but not limited to, audience demographics, community participation (and non-participation), audience reach and frequency, earnings ratios, revenue trends among the disciplines (including re-circulated vs. new dollars), salary surveys, employment tenure and turnover, and impact on the region's social, cultural and economic environments. Clearly, these topics may expand and evolve as arts and culture organizations, funders, government agencies and arts advocacy groups pose their own questions for the Observatory to answer.

The Observatory shares data with other research centers so that additional and more extensive analyses may be possible.