Authorized statements by the Executive Director of the Institute of Statistics on statements made by the Executive Director of Financial Advisory and Agency of the Government of Puerto Rico.

Announcements
IEPR
29 December 2025

PRESS RELEASE
DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

March 28, 2018

AUTHORIZED STATEMENTS BY THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS ON STATEMENTS MADE BY THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE FINANCIAL ADVISORY AUTHORITY AND FISCAL AGENCY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF PUERTO RICO

Faced with the enormous fiscal and credibility challenges facing our Government, we renew our invitation to the Executive Director of AAFAF to demonstrate his real commitment to financial transparency, providing us with access to the “general ledger” of AAFAF and all the other subsidiaries it manages, so that we can incorporate them into the Puerto Rico Financial Transparency System, managed by the Institute: Financial Transparency. pr.

The “general ledger” is the accounting database that records every expense or revenue transaction of an organization. It contains information about who receives each payment, when they receive it, how much they received it and what they received it for.

Since 2016, the Institute has invited all public entities to join the System. So far, AAFAF has shown no interest in participating in the System, despite the fact that this server personally presented the System to AAFAF and invited not only AAFAF to join, but AAFAF to order the entire Government to join.

Globally, more and more countries, states and cities are using open data portals, such as the Financial Transparency System, to report to their citizens on how every penny of public funds is spent. In addition, as soon as the information is recorded in the System, great cost and efficiency are achieved in the management of public financial information.

All the information on the Institute's operating expenses is available there, in an open format that allows data to be downloaded, analyzed and visualized.

For example, one of the lines requested by AAFAF is the expenditure on the employer's contribution to the health insurance of the Institute's employees. If he spent about five minutes, the Director could see that the Institute has spent a large total of $41,844 on health insurance for its employees so far so far in fiscal year 2018:
Fiscal 2018: http://www.transparenciafinanciera.pr/

For more information on the Institute's finances, you can view all of the Institute's audited financial statements, together with the auditing reports that the Office of the Comptroller has carried out on the Institute's finances, at: Mission-and-Vision.

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes (787) 688-0401

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Recognition by CDC of the Institute's Violent Death Surveillance System

PRESS RELEASE
DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

May 24, 2018

The Puerto Rico Violent Death Surveillance System developed by the Institute is recognized as the best new program by the Division of Violence Prevention from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

San Juan, PR, May 24, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Violent Death Surveillance System (PRVDRS, in English) developed and established by the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute), thanks to a proposal approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has been recognized as the best of the new programs established by the Division of Violence Prevention of this entity.

This was announced by the Executive Director of the Institute, Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, who said he was pleased with the recognition and extraordinary work of the team in charge of the Institute, led by Dr. Idania Rodríguez Ayuso, the Institute's senior manager of Statistical Projects, and Dr. Diego E. Zavala, co-researcher of the project. “This important recognition demonstrates that statistical information can be collected in an agile, timely and systematic manner by government entities in Puerto Rico and that it complies with federal requirements. We are grateful for this recognition, which has been the result of the efforts of a committed and excellent work team. We are also grateful for the collaboration of the Demographic Registry of the Department of Health, the Puerto Rico Police and the Forensic Science Bureau, which, with the provision of the necessary data for its operation, are also part of this important achievement,” said Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

The PRVDRS is an active, continuous epidemiological surveillance system that collects information on violent deaths. It uses multiple sources of data and incorporates them into a single database, using the ecological model of public health. It began in September 2016 and began collecting data on violent deaths starting in January 2017. The proposal, funded by the CDC, lasts 5 years.

Data is collected in a systematic way to be a single reference base with complete and accurate data. They are obtained from the Puerto Rico Police Bureau, the Forensic Science Bureau and the Department of Health's Demographic Registry. The system seeks to achieve standardization using specific definitions and providing comprehensive information on the context in which deaths occur. This will help identify risk factors (e.g. job loss, mental health problems, family problems and other stressors).

The PRVDRS will also provide data related to the magnitude of violence and trends at different geographical levels. All of this will be essential to support the monitoring and evaluation of violence prevention programs and strategies in Puerto Rico. The PRVDRS has an Advisory Board and a Review Group. The latter discusses the discrepancies found in data collection. In addition, it is part of the Institute and currently has three employees assigned to it and a total of 12 people in total working on the project.

Based on data from the Bureau of Forensic Sciences, the homicide rate in Puerto Rico in 2014 was 20.11 per 100,000 inhabitants, four times higher than the equivalent rate for the United States (4.8). The latest data available for the United States is from 2014 and is based on information provided by 18 states, representing 22.5% of the United States population. For more information about the CDC's NVDRS you can access the following link: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nvdrs/stateprofiles.html

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 https://estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through https://data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: https://www.indicadores.pr.

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 on 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 our website: https://estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook accounts (https://www.facebook.com/estadisticas.pr), Twitter (https://twitter.com/estadisticaspr) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/instituto-de-estadisticas-de-puerto-rico).

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Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes (787) 688-0401

67,000 people immigrated from Puerto Rico to the United States in 2016

PRESS RELEASE

DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

67,000 people immigrated from Puerto Rico to the United States in 2016

This represents a new record, as revealed by the most recent Migrant Profile published by the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics.

San Juan, PR, June 20, 2018 — In 2016 89,000 people immigrated to the United States, thus maintaining the same record level as last year, while there was an increase of 3,000 compared to 2015, for a total of -67,000 people, who emigrated in net terms. This represents a new immigration record for Puerto Rico.

This was revealed in the 2016 Migrant Profile, which was released today and presents a look at the migratory movement of Puerto Rico in the 2016 calendar year using the Survey on the Community of U.S. Census Bureau, as well as the net movement data of air passengers from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the Ports Authority. Here are some of the report's other key findings:

  1. In 2016, Puerto Rico's migration indicators showed that:
  • -24,000 people immigrated to the United States with some post-secondary education in net terms (Community Survey)
  • -84 thousand air passengers to all destinations in net terms (BTS)
  • -98 thousand air passengers to all destinations in net terms, (Ports Authority)

  1. For 2016 (before considering the impact of the 2017 hurricanes), the current wave of migration showed no sign of abating. In the 12-year period between 2005 and 2016, in net terms:
  • -524 thousand people immigrated to the United States (Community Survey)
  • -662,000 air passengers departed to all destinations (BTS)
  • -830 thousand air passengers departed to all destinations (Ports Authority)

  1. The ten states with the highest net migration balance in relation to Puerto Rico were Florida, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut, Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia and Kentucky.

4. Between 2015 and 2016, the profile of the population that migrated between Puerto Rico and the United States changed in several ways:

  • The difference in the median age between the emigrant and immigrant population of Puerto Rico was minimal, close to 0.4 years, with the youngest emigrants having a median age of 29.5 years and the immigrants being 29.9 years old.
  • The percentage of the emigrant population with some post-secondary education showed an increase of 4 percentage points from 53% to 57%; this percentage of people for the immigrant population increased by 3 percentage points from 45% to 48%.
  • The percentage of emigrants who are out of the labor force (after migrating) decreased by 3 percentage points between 2015 (41%) and 2016 (38%) and among immigrants it increased by 8 percentage points from 50% to 58%.
  • The median income of emigrants and immigrants between Puerto Rico and the United States increased by 13 and 7 percent respectively between 2015 and 2016.

  1. In 2016, 46% of immigrants and 38% of migrants were living in poverty.

  1. The occupational group with the highest frequency among emigrants was Management and Professional, followed by Sales and Office occupations. As for specific occupations:
  • Between 457 and 3,831 emigrants were employed as customer service representatives.
  • Between 764 and 3,212 were employed by retailers, it was estimated that between 826 and 2,412 emigrants were teachers and between 548 and 2,324 were cashiers.

“Among the characteristics examined in 2016, a remarkable 57% of emigrants aged 25 and over had some education greater than high school. In addition, the percentage of emigrants outside the labor force once mobilized in the United States was 37%, compared to 55% with a similar characteristic in Puerto Rico. This picture makes clear the lack of opportunities on the island to allow more people to be inserted into the labor sector, even though more than half of the adults who decided to emigrate have some preparation and potential to be employed. One wonders if we are considering these types of indicators and their trends in order to counteract this pattern,” said Alberto L. Velázquez-Estrada, manager of statistical projects at the Institute.

The full report, as well as previous publications of the profile, are available on the Institute's portal at www.estadisticas.pr.gov, you can also access the various publications in the profile via direct link hither.

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.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian 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.

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 on 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 our website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. 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 Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes/(787) 688-0401

1 in 39 women (2.6 percent) between 18 and 44 years old mentioned that their doctor had ever told them they had some type of HPV infection.
Statistics Institute reveals results of the first Human Papillomavirus (HPV) survey conducted in Puerto Rico

San Juan, PR, January 14, 2017 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) today announced the results of the Adult Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Survey 2014 the first survey related to the topic carried out by the Institute itself at the level of the population of adult women in Puerto Rico.

It focused mainly on the responses of women aged 18 to 44, which corresponds to the adult population of reproductive age. In addition, it collects information related to the knowledge of this population on important aspects such as the following: The existence of vaccines, the prevalence of vaccinated women, diagnostic knowledge with a virus infection and the regularity of medical tests for the possible detection of the virus.

Here are the main results:

  • 89.4 percent of the population of women ages 18 to 44 reported having heard about HPV.
  • 93.1 percent of this population recognized that the primary route of HPV transmission is through sexual contact.
  • 65.4 percent of this population knows that there is no cure for HPV.
  • 66.0 percent of the population of women ages 18 to 34 reported having heard about HPV vaccines.
  • 1 in 7 women (14.7 percent) in this population (18 to 34 years old) reported having ever been vaccinated.
  • Among this vaccinated population, 50.7 percent obtained the three necessary doses of the vaccine.
  • 74.5 percent of the population of women ages 18 to 44 reported having had a Pap smear in the past three years.
  • 1 in 39 women (2.6 percent) between 18 and 44 years old mentioned that their doctor had ever told them they had some type of HPV infection.

The final sample size of interviews was 1,138 households. The response rate of the Adult Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Survey 2014 was 97.4 percent, which is equivalent to 1,108 households. Of these interviews, 665 were conducted on cell phones and 443 on fixed line phones.

HPV is one of the world's most important sexually transmitted infections due to its health implications. However, there was no information on the level of knowledge about HPV and the percentage of vaccination against the virus in the population of adult women living in Puerto Rico and the regularity of medical tests for the possible detection of the virus, among others.

One of the functions of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics is to produce its own statistics to complement existing data. To fulfill this function, in 2014, the Institute conducted the Adult HPV Survey for the adult population of men and women in Puerto Rico. This survey was carried out thanks to the collaboration of the Puerto Rico Department of Health's Behavior-Associated Risk Factor Surveillance System (PR‐BRFSS).

In Puerto Rico, the incidence rate of cervical cancer has been increasing. By 2014, Puerto Rico had an age-adjusted rate of 13.9 per 100,000 women. During the period from 2006 to 2014, the first five municipalities with the highest age-adjusted incidence rate of cervical cancer were Sábana Grande (19.4), Aibonito (19.0), Orocovis (18.8), Santa Isabel (18.7) and Lajas (17.2), according to the Puerto Rico Central Cancer Registry. For 2009, the age-adjusted incidence rate of cervical cancer in Puerto Rico (12.6) surpassed the corresponding rate for the population of Hispanic women in the United States (10.7), a trend that continued through 2014.

“The changes observed in rates over the past few years suggest that it is important to have a greater understanding of HPV and the use of its vaccine in Puerto Rico. This first survey seeks to begin to address this need,” said Dr. Idania R. Rodríguez Ayuso, co-author of the report on the Survey and senior manager of statistical projects at the Institute.

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 IEPR has in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian 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.

In addition, as the leading entity of the Puerto Rico SDC, the IEPR manages the SDC portal, where you can find the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on 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 our website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. 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 Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes/ 787-688-0401