PRESS RELEASE

Statistics Institute and Cities League sign collaboration agreement

San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 21, 2020 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) and the Puerto Rico Cities League, represented by their respective executive directors, Dr. Orville M. Disdier and planner Cristina M. Miranda Palacios, signed a collaboration agreement to share efforts and resources, in order to increase the knowledge and understanding of municipal employees about statistical methodologies, and the use and management of data.

The League of Cities is a non-profit entity that unites local governments in a non-partisan effort to improve the quality of life of the Puerto Rican people. Through this alliance, both entities will share information and resources. The League will collaborate by allowing access to the Institute to official, reliable and quality statistics and information about municipalities. For its part, the Institute will provide expert advice in the analysis of municipal data, particularly with the objective of developing metrics that allow comparing and generating indicators of socio-economic development, health and quality of life of its inhabitants.

“Part of the Institute's vision is to ensure that Puerto Rico has complete, reliable statistics that are quickly and universally accessible. This includes making these statistics available to government agencies themselves as part of their analysis and decision-making process, and for the benefit of cities,” said Dr. Disdier.

“Data is vital information in municipal management. They are useful for explaining the past, understanding the present and making future decisions that benefit the people who are the reason for the existence of municipalities. The League is the result of a meeting of wills, from which a non-profit, non-political partisan entity was born, focused on advancing the municipal agenda, which is the agenda of the people. This collaborative agreement with the Institute of Statistics is another step in that mission. It strengthens the path that we have started together, the municipalities and entities of the executive branch towards a better quality of life for Puerto Ricans,” said Miranda.

Some of the data that the Institute will be able to provide to the League are statistics on COVID-19, economic activity and demographic aspects in municipalities, as well as statistics produced by the US Census Bureau, among others. In addition, based on available resources, the Institute will provide training to municipal employees so that they can make better use of data and statistics.

The agreement, which will be in effect until June 2022, is an example of the initiatives that can be developed between governmental and non-governmental sectors for the benefit of Puerto Rico.

About the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity tasked with coordinating the government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and accessible quickly and universally. In addition, as the leading entity of the SDC in Puerto Rico, the Institute manages the SDC portal, which contains the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau about Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates, the Puerto Rico Community Survey (Puerto Rico Community Survey) and official statistics on Puerto Rico's 10-year population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr/.

For more information you can visit the website: https://estadisticas.pr.gov/. In addition, you can follow the Institute on social networks, through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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Press Contact:

Idia Martínez

787-603-3200

imartinez@upfrontpr.net

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They add data on adult health conditions to the interactive map on school and community profiles

Based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)” annual survey

August 2, 2022: The executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier, announced that a new layer has been added to the interactive map on school and community profiles, known as the “School Community Profile: The Interactive Map”. This time, the new layer deals with aspects of adult health. This new layer presents statistics on several health conditions in the adult population (18 years and older), such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer, among others. The data are based on information collected by the annual “Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)” survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Department of Health. This particular layer is entitled “Behavioral Risk Surveillance System 2020 (CDC)” and must be activated using the “layers” menu. The data correspond to the calendar year 2020 and the statistics are available at the regional level, segregated into the following six (6) regions: Arecibo, Bayamón, Caguas, Mayagüez, Metro-Fajardo and Ponce.

“These data allow us to geo-correlate the regional prevalence of health characteristics of adult residents of those regions, with the rest of the diverse characteristics of schools, students and the communities that are located within them,” explained Dr. Disdier.

Some aspects that this new layer allows us to observe are, for example, that the prevalence of diabetes for 2020 was 19.3% for the Arecibo region, while for the Metro-Fajardo region it was 13%. On the other hand, for the Arecibo region, the prevalence of kidney disease was 3.3%, and for the Caguas region it was 2.6%. “The contrasts between the health aspects of the regions with the rest of the characteristics of the students, and their communities in those regions, could help improve health promotion and health risk prevention strategies within each community,” emphasized Dr. Disdier.

The School Community Profile: The Interactive Map”, with this new layer and all the others, resides on the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics website and can be accessed at any time by interested parties at the following e-mail address: School community profile.

For technical questions about this tool, you can send an email to: preguntas@estadisticas.pr.

#estadisticaspr

About the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

To learn more about the Institute of Statistics, you can access the website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. On social media through Facebook accounts (@statistics.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR), Instagram (@institutodeestadisticas) and LinkedIn (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics).

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Statistics Institute donates equipment to public elementary school in Loíza as part of the “Guardians of Education” initiative