Puerto Rico Lag Index

Announcements
Alejandro López Flores y Ronald G. Hernández Maldonado
20 January 2026

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.

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Puerto Rico Lag Index

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Statistics Institute invites Research and Development organizations to participate in Puerto Rico's second 2012-13 Science and Technology Survey

Statistics Institute invites Research and Development organizations to participate in Puerto Rico's second 2012-13 Science and Technology Survey

Call for paid internships at the Institute of Statistics

PRESS RELEASE

Call for paid internships announced at the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

Students in statistics, mathematics, computer science, public administration, and others may apply

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute announced that, for the next two weeks, and as long as the available spaces are filled, the call for paid internships will be open for graduate students in statistics, mathematics, computer science or in any other area in which extensive use is made of statistics, including economics, planning, demography, epidemiology, biostatistics, criminology, sociology, public policy, public administration, business administration or other related ones. The opportunity also extends to undergraduate students, from any of the above-mentioned disciplines, who are candidates for graduation in the same academic year in which they participate in the program.

Those selected will have the opportunity to collaborate directly with professionals from the Institute, who have extensive experience in the fields of economics, epidemiology, education, demography, statistics, programming and administration, among others. In the same way, they will receive support from the Institute's staff in the major projects they carry out according to the area in which they are assigned. All this, as indicated, in a work and learning environment that allows them to apply their knowledge in a professional environment.

“We are pleased to offer this opportunity to graduate students, or undergraduate candidates for graduation, as they will not only gain experience, but we also help them prepare for the professional field of work. In the same way, it is always good to share with the new generations that they have a lot to contribute, particularly in one of the most developed areas in Puerto Rico, such as statistics,” said Dr. Orville M. Disdier, executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, who added that, among the applicants, they are interested in identifying candidates with knowledge in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Microsoft Power BI, SQL and Python, and others.

It was reported that interested parties must complete an application that is available at Programa_Internado_2025_IEPR.pdf where, in addition, the requirements and documents they must provide are detailed. Once the application is completed, it must be sent along with the documents to the following email: programadeinternado@estadisticas.pr. The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute will receive the requests and they will go through an evaluation process. Applicants will then receive a formal notification with the decision made.

For more information, those interested who meet the requirements can contact Mrs. Rebeca Ortiz, Office Manager at the following email: rebeca.ortiz@estadisticas.pr.

The Internship Program of the Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico was created to promote the professional development of undergraduate students or graduates of university programs in statistics or related sciences at universities in Puerto Rico and other jurisdictions in the United States, to collaborate with the projects, studies and work carried out at the Institute.

Significant advances in the structure of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

PRESS RELEASE

Significant advances in the structure of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

A Strategic Plan that will allow the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute to be a more effective and effective one, the signing of a collaboration agreement with UNA-USA Puerto Rico to generate the first 13 indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals for Puerto Rico, the updating of the section on studies related to Hurricane Maria, as well as offering support and guidance to those interested in applying for job opportunities in the 2020 Census, are some of the advances made by the Statistics Institute of Puerto Rico during this year 2019.

Aware of the responsibility to coordinate the government's statistical production service to ensure that data is reliable and quickly and universally accessible, during this year the institute also completed and presented important publications such as: the Yearbook of the Puerto Rico Education System: 2015-2016, the World Values Survey for Puerto Rico 2018, the Migrant Profile 2017, the Food Security Report for Puerto Rico 2015, and the Student Health and Safety Profile in Puerto Rico: Years 2015-2017. The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute added to the achievements of 2019 to complete the data for the year 2017 of the Puerto Rico Violent Death Surveillance System, which received an excellent score in all quality criteria and ranked number one among the 42 participating jurisdictions.

“It has been a year of great progress for the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, because not only are we fulfilling our role of coordinating the production of complete and reliable statistics, but we have also established important alliances with various sectors that allow us to continue advancing our mission, while presenting opportunities to strengthen the research methodologies we carry out. For next year 2020, we will provide continuity with updates to the Puerto Rico Education System Yearbook, the Migrant Profile, and the Student Health and Safety Profile in Puerto Rico, among other products”, said the acting executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier.

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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 most significant achievements of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics during this year are available at: Most Significant Achievements of the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute 2019.

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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