Press Release

DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Demographic Registry complies with the order of publishing mortality data

The action paves the way for greater transparency than

It saves lives after future hurricanes in Puerto Rico

San Juan, PR, August 30, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) announced today that the Demographic Registry has begun to comply with the Resolution No. 2018-03 of the Board of Directors of the Institute for the purpose of disseminating a set of data (Dataset) which contains preliminary information on deaths, which will be updated weekly on the open data platform managed by the Institute.

The Institute's Board of Directors had ordered this disclosure as a “measure of transparency” in the face of concerns raised last year regarding deaths that occurred after the passage of hurricanes Irma and María.

The released dataset contains information for each recorded death, which occurred from January 1, 2017 to the most recent week. It includes information on causes of death, month of death, place of residence, place of birth, type of death, sex, marital status, age, education level, occupation, industry, veteran status, and more.

This can be downloaded from the Institute's new open data platform, available here: https://datos.estadisticas.pr/dataset/defunciones-registradas-hasta-la-semana-pasada. The platform also allows you to preview the data and also allows you to develop applications that connect to the data set automatically through the use of Application Programming Interface (API).

Although the Resolution of the Board of Directors mandates that this data set be updated daily, the Department of Health and the Institute of Statistics agreed to update it weekly, as long as there is no emergency declaration. If an emergency is declared in the future, the Demographic Registry will be updating the data daily, to facilitate the analysis of these data that can save lives. In fact, this protocol should be included in the Department of Health's next Emergency Plan.

“Right now, more than ever, it has become evident the importance of the accessibility of statistical data to determine trends during specific times or phenomena, resulting in more assertive responses to an emergency. The certainty and transparency of this type of information could make the difference between life and death. Both the Department of Health and Governor Ricardo Rosselló's administration have always promoted free access to information, especially at a time when we seek to perfect every aspect of our contingency plans for times of emergency. This initiative, which unites the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics and the Demographic Registry, points in that direction. We are pleased that it is materializing and that steps are being taken in the data collection process, for the benefit of Puerto Rican citizens,” said the Secretary of Health, Dr. Rafael Rodríguez Mercado.

For his part, the Executive Director of the Institute, Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, stressed: “The Department of Health's mortality statistics take a long time to prepare and publish. The newly published data help to perceive mortality in the short term, without the extensive purification protocol required by official statistics. In this way, we demonstrate our Government's commitment to transparency, and we are also preparing to respond more quickly to the mortality that may occur after the next hurricane. The data will be available even if there is no regular electric power service in Puerto Rico. This disclosure literally saves lives. It's the least we can do to recognize and honor the memory of the thousands of people who died as a result of Hurricane Maria.”

The announcement opens the way for the filing of a lawsuit that the Institute had filed in May of this year to force the Department of Health to provide this data on a recurring basis in order to comply with Resolution No. 2018-03 of the Institute's Board of Directors. In accordance with its Organic Law, the Institute has the power to demand or require from any governmental body the information or data it deems necessary for statistical purposes.

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.

##

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

‍

Author: Alejandro López Flores and Ronald G. Hernández Maldonado

Date: November 6, 2025

‍

Poverty must be contextualized with social variables to understand and address it effectively. The Backwardness Index for Puerto Rico is an indicator composed of five variables that comprise two dimensions: Economic Mobility and Demography. This index seeks to measure poverty beyond income thresholds, and to incorporate elements of social backwardness and relative deprivation. An exploratory factor analysis was carried out on a set of variables to validate the construction of the multidimensional deprivation model, and to retain the variables that best captured the phenomenon of deprivation. Then, the retained variables were normalized using thresholds. The thresholds were obtained with data from the Puerto Rico Community Survey (ECPR or PRCS in English) and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS in English). The scores of the different variables were aggregated by dimension, using the arithmetic mean, and the scores resulting from the dimensions were aggregated using the geometric mean. The values of the index lie between 0 and 1 where, the higher the score, the worse the result of the phenomenon.42 municipalities showed a decrease in their index score between the periods compared. Of these 42 municipalities, 22 showed a decrease in their score greater than 5%. Likewise, there are concentrations of municipalities with high Lagging Index scores in the central-southwest and southeastern areas of Puerto Rico.

‍

Statistics Institute launches subscription system to offer recent statistical products

The service is free of charge

Current statistics, is the new official registry of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics to provide, through a subscription system, recent statistical products to citizens. Subscribers of Current statistics they will receive relevant data directly to their emails on specific topics in which they indicated that they had an interest. In this way, they will have up-to-date information on preferred data, whether for work, study, business or general interest purposes.

Through this system, whose registration process is quick and simple, subscribers will select the topics of interest on which they want to receive updated data once they are available. The Institute will also share with subscribers updated information that is considered to be of interest to the subscriber community. The subscription service to Current statistics it's free, but interested parties must register through the following link: Subscriptions.

“This new service allows us to continue to make the data and statistical products generated by the Institute accessible to all people. In the same way, it is an excellent tool to continue educating about the importance of statistics, since eventually subscribers will have exclusive access to Current statistics vlog, in which educational information, novel and relevant to the field of statistics, will be published,” said Dr. Orville M. Disdier Flores, Executive Director of the Institute.

The service, as reported, is aimed at anyone interested in obtaining statistical data such as researchers, health professionals, statisticians, teachers, demographers, journalists, university students, human behavior professionals, public servants, among others.

All statistical products produced or published by the Statistics Institute are available at www.estadisticas.pr. However, subscribers to Current Statistics will have the advantage of receiving direct notifications to their email about the most recent data produced or published by the Institute.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is a governmental entity in the executive branch, with fiscal and administrative autonomy, whose main purpose is to ensure that Puerto Rico has complete, reliable statistics that are quickly and universally accessible. 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).

‍