AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION REQUIRES ROSSELLÓ NOT TO DISMANTLE PUERTO RICO'S STATISTICS INSTITUTE

The executive director attacked the measure and invited the Government to take statistics seriously at this time of fiscal crisis

San Juan, PR, January 25, 2018 — The American Statistical Association, known as the American Statistical Association (ASA) today released a cyber petition entitled Clear Accounts: Let's Preserve the Autonomy and Impartiality of the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute in which he calls on both Governor Ricardo Rosselló and members of the Legislature to desist from transferring the functions of the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (IEPR) to the Puerto Rico Department of Economic Development and Trade in order to eventually outsource all the statistical functions of the Government of Puerto Rico.

The ASA request makes specific reference to Reorganization Plan No. 1 And to Senate Bill 809, which was published yesterday and signed by five scientists from prestigious entities such as Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Yale University.

In addition, he emphasizes that this measure “would dismantle the IEPR and its autonomy, and would jeopardize the transparent and impartial statistical analyses that are critical to the functioning of Puerto Rico and to decision-making in all sectors of society, public and private.”

To this end, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, insisted that everywhere in the world there is a recognition of the need for official statistics to be prepared by independent governmental entities so that they can carry out their functions in a manner totally disconnected from political influences.

The Government of Puerto Rico has a long history of producing, disseminating and presenting rigged, outdated, misinterpreted, and incomplete statistics, and then access to sources of information is not provided so that the information can be verified, either by the citizen or by a congressman. The reality is that statistics are a serious issue and it is time for our Government to take them seriously, particularly if it wants to address its own fiscal problem.

Marazzi Santiago assured that there is no way that the proposed reorganization of the Institute of Statistics, as a program within the Department of Economic Development and Trade or outsourced by it, will solve the serious problem of reliability and credibility that the Government of Puerto Rico has with its statistics.

“We appreciate the efforts of the American Statistical Association (ASA) to create a vehicle that allows data users to express themselves publicly about the proposed reorganization,” said Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

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The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for 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 have quick and universal access. The Institute has in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr, more than 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a guardian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through www.data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: www.indicadores.pr.

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

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PRESS RELEASE

Data presented from the Report on Violent Deaths in Puerto Rico

729 homicides and 276 suicides were reported in Puerto Rico in 2017

The Puerto Rico Violent Death Notification System (PRVDRS) established at the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, presented data from the Puerto Rico Violent Deaths Report for 2017. The report reports that, in 925 documented incidents of violent deaths, there were 1,025 victims. According to the PRVDRS, violent deaths are those that occur primarily by suicide or homicide.

The data indicate that 70.3% of the incidents were classified as single or multiple homicides, 26.3% were single incidents of suicide and 1.4% of the incidents were homicide-suicides. In 2017, six homicide-suicide incidents were reported, resulting in 14 fatalities, of which eight were classified as homicides and six as suicides. In addition, during this period, three violent deaths attributed to legal intervention (0.3%) and 17 violent deaths with undetermined intent (1.7%) were documented. The report concludes that in 2017 there were a total of 729 homicides and 276 suicides in Puerto Rico.

In 2017, the crude homicide rate was 21.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, 43.8 in men (1 in 31 men) and 2.1 in women (1 in 650 women). The primary mechanism of the homicides was firearms. 45.5% of the 729 homicides are documented as related to drug trafficking and organized crime. The report also indicates that firearms were used in practically all homicides related to organized crime (97.9%). In Puerto Rico, according to the report, 90% of homicides are committed with firearms, more than double the global average of 41.2%. 82.1% of these weapons are pistols or revolvers. The report of Small Arms Survey In 2017, it estimated that 422,000 firearms were in legal (registered by the police) and illegal possession in Puerto Rico; that is, approximately 12 out of every 100 people owned a firearm. PRVDRS data for 2017 show that firearms continue to be the primary mechanism for homicides in both men (91.3%) and women (64.9%).

Of the 21 homicides with evidence of family violence, 18 are the result of conflicts in partner or ex-partner relationships. The majority of these victims are women (72.2%) and 17 of the 18 suspects are men (94.4%). The circumstances in these homicides relate to immediate or ongoing conflict, or to violence between partners or ex-partners (72.2%), a crisis between intimate partners (33.3%) or jealousy over a current or previous intimate partner relationship (16.7%). In 53.8% of male-female relationships, femicide occurred using a firearm and in 38.5% a sharp instrument.

As for suicides in Puerto Rico, the report highlights that the frequency is lower than that of homicides. However, as in homicides, suicides are more frequent in men (84.4%). In 2017, the crude suicide rate was 8.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, 14.7 in men (1 of 97 men) and 2.5 in women (1 of 536 women). The main mechanism was asphyxiation.

Myribel Santiago, manager of statistical projects at the Institute of Statistics and co-principal investigator of the Report on Violent Deaths in Puerto Rico, explained that the collection of this type of data involves fieldwork that takes more than 16 months from the moment the incident occurs, the data is recorded and collected, among the collaborating agencies, until the closure and disclosure of the data. “We are pleased to have completed the first annual report of violent deaths in Puerto Rico,” said Santiago, who highlighted that the PRVDRS ranked number one in excellence in the timeliness and completeness of the 2017 data, among the 42 jurisdictions participating in the NVDRS in the United States.

“This system is a reliable, complete and unique reference source that helps describe the context of violent deaths in the victim-aggressor relationship and the magnitude, trend and characteristics of violent deaths in Puerto Rico,” said Dr. Diego Zavala, epidemiologist and co-principal investigator of the PRVDRS.

For the executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier, these statistics are one of the main tools to combat the phenomenon of violence in Puerto Rico. “These data, among others, serve as a basis for establishing effective measures for the prevention of violence in Puerto Rico, from multiple social, demographic and economic approaches. Our commitment at the Institute of Statistics is to continue strengthening this statistical and epidemiological system to continue improving the quality of this type of data,” argued Dr. Disdier.

The PRVDRS is an epidemiological surveillance system affiliated with the Institute of Statistics and designed to obtain a complete and standardized census of violent deaths in Puerto Rico. The PRVDRS began its participation in the National Violent Death Notification System (National Violent Death Reporting System, NVDRS) in September 2016 through a collaborative agreement granted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

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.

The 2017 Report on Violent Deaths in Puerto Rico is available at: Puerto Rico Violent Death Notification System. To learn about the Institute of Statistics, you can access it on social networks through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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Contact:

Dr. Orville M. Disdier

787-586-4414

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Public participation in the review of the Death Certificate