PRESS RELEASE

Puerto Rico Commission for Suicide Prevention and Statistics Institute publish statistical report for 2019

For the year 2019, 176 cases of suicide were reported, 67 cases less than in 2018

Dr. Orville M. Disdier, executive director of the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) reported that a collaboration with the Commission for Suicide Prevention (CPS), attached to the Puerto Rico Department of Health, resulted in the “Annual Statistical Report on Deaths by Suicide 2019”.

“This report is of great importance for citizens, since it presents data on suicide for 2019 and draws comparisons with previous years. In addition, it collects data not only on fatal suicide events, but it also presents information on calls to the ASSMCA PAS line and, for the first time, includes data on suicide attempts and contemplations attended by the Emergency Medical Corps,” said Myribel Santiago, manager of statistical projects at the Institute and co-author of the publication.

The publication of this report underlines the importance of the Institute in coordinating the statistical production service of government entities. The Institute has the capacity not only to request statistical information from executive branch agencies, but also to provide them with collaboration, advice and the necessary tools to improve the quality of the statistics they produce.

“Despite the extraordinary circumstances we currently live in, we hope to continue collaborating. Today, more than ever, we need reliable and accurate data to facilitate the implementation of a responsible, informed and sensitive public policy to the complex reality we live in,” said Dr. María Isabel Coss, educational coordinator of the CPS and lead author of the publication.

For his part, Dr. Disdier argued that “the results of this collaborative report reflect that in 2019, a crude suicide rate of 5.5 per 100,000 inhabitants was observed, which is the lowest rate since 2000. Without a doubt, this is very positive and it also demonstrates the enormous importance of continuing to support the preparation of this type of report, since it is only with data that we can know if the prevention measures are giving the desired results”.

The CPS is responsible for promoting, developing, implementing, coordinating actions and strategies for suicide prevention, adopting an integrative and interdisciplinary approach aimed at individuals, families, communities at risk, and helping professionals. In addition, it emphasizes research, the development of prevention and intervention programs and

in raising public awareness of the magnitude and seriousness of suicide in Puerto Rico. For its part, the Institute is a governmental entity whose mission is to guarantee Puerto Rico that it has complete, reliable statistics, and quick and universal access.

You can access this annual report and other related reports through the following link: Suicide Statistics.

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

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Contacts:

Idia M. Martinez, R-28, 787-603-3200

Lourdes Burgos, R-27, 787-562-2932

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Historic U.S. Census Bureau test begins in Puerto Rico

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

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