PRESS RELEASE
DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

April 25, 2018

INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS ORDERS PUBLICATION OF MORTALITY DATA

The decision of the Board of Directors paves the way for greater transparency to save lives after future hurricanes in Puerto Rico and supports ongoing efforts to review the number of deaths as a result of Hurricane Maria.

The Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico (Institute) announced today the approval of a series of methodological standards that must be used to measure the number of fatalities from future natural disasters in Puerto Rico, as well as to produce final estimates of the number of deaths as a result of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, a process that still remains incomplete today.

The methodological standards approved by the Institute's Board of Directors include: (1) the need to conduct a case-level epidemiological study to comprehensively measure the number of fatalities from any natural disaster, (2) the sources of information that should be used for this type of epidemiological study, (3) the criteria that will be used to attribute a specific death to a natural disaster, and (4) the set of mortality data that must be published online and updated daily.

The rules were approved in the Resolution No. 2018-03 of the Institute's Board approved this week. The Resolution also orders PRIS staff to take all necessary actions permitted under the Institute Enabling Act to ensure that these methodological standards are adopted and implemented by the Government of Puerto Rico.

For example, under the Resolution No. 2018-03, PRIS expert staff and financial resources are available to ensure that an exhaustive case-level epidemiological study is carried out to complete the review of the number of fatalities from Hurricane Maria. In addition, the Resolution requires that any epidemiological study of cases of disaster-related mortality in Puerto Rico be able to take advantage of information from the following sources: death certificates, medical records, forensic pathology files and the testimony of family members.

In addition, the Resolution adopts the criteria and classification structure developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for the attribution of a specific death to a natural disaster. These criteria are described in the Reference guide for the certification of deaths in the event of a natural, human-induced or chemical/radioactive disaster.

Finally, the Resolution describes the specific data fields that must be published and updated daily for each death on the Puerto Rico Open Data Portal:
https://data.pr.gov/. To do this, the Institute will use its authority, which includes powers such as subpoena, to request the necessary set of data from the Puerto Rico Health Department on a daily basis. The Institute will also be available to train staff from the Puerto Rico Department of Health, so that they can upload the necessary data sets themselves.

“As the next hurricane season approaches, we must work to ensure that Puerto Rico's data infrastructure is better prepared to inform our citizens and the world about conditions in Puerto Rico. In the case of mortality, allowing people on the other side of the world to see our latest death records allows scientists around the world to analyze our data, even when there is no electricity or Internet in Puerto Rico, to identify patterns that can save lives in a timely manner. We owe it to the hundreds, if not the thousands, of people who died as a result of Hurricane Maria, so that we never allow this to happen again,” said Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, executive director of the Institute.

Currently, the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety attributes only 64 deaths to Hurricane Maria. In December, after several independent researchers discovered that the number of fatalities from Hurricane Maria could be more than a thousand, the Government of Puerto Rico ordered a review of Maria's death toll and stopped providing the public with monthly mortality totals.

The Resolution of the Institute's Board explicitly recognizes that in the 3 months following the passage of hurricanes Irma and María over Puerto Rico, there were higher-than-average deaths in Puerto Rico, amounting to more than a thousand, and that this increase in deaths is probably related to the passage of hurricanes Irma and María over Puerto Rico. The resolution also aims to support the work of a group of independent researchers from George Washington University who were hired by the Government of Puerto Rico to analyze various issues related to mortality after Hurricane Maria.

The Institute's Board had been carefully analyzing and considering the approval of this Resolution, after it was able to restart its work last month. Previously, he had not been able to meet, even before hurricanes Irma and María made landfall in Puerto Rico, due to a legal dispute that arose last summer, after the Governor tried to dismiss several members of the Institute's Board of Directors without due process. The dispute was finally resolved in the first instance last month, following a court ruling that the Governor lacked authority to dismiss Board members without due process.

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 Puerto Rico's SDC, 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 and official statistics on Puerto Rico's decennial 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 (statistics.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics).

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

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Conference on the 2020 Census, process, importance and purpose of data

Free admission to Caguas on Thursday, February 27, 2020

Make Puerto Rico count! is an initiative of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics to publicize, through an entire day of conferences, the processes of the Decennial Census that is being carried out during this year 2020, the methodology, the importance and the purpose of the data. This will take place on Thursday, February 27, 2020 at the Criollo Center for Caribbean Science and Technology in Caguas from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free and includes lunch and poster presentation.

“The census is much more than just a count of people. It provides us with an image of our society that is useful and necessary in decision-making, in effective planning and in the distribution of funds, among other actions. In addition, it helps us to see how our communities have changed over time,” said Alberto L. Velázquez-Estrada, Manager of Statistical Projects at the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics.

With the participation of census data experts and key field operations personnel from the U.S. Census Bureau, topics related to the census operation and the importance of official population enumeration will be presented, which is considered a unique opportunity in every decade. The topics to be presented are: Decennial censuses and aspects to consider in the current demography of Puerto Rico, by Dr. Judith Rodriguez, former professor of the Graduate Program in Demography of the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico; Census Operation 2020, by Jeff Behler, director of the New York Regional Office (NYRO) of the U.S. Census Bureau; The Complete Enumeration Committees in Puerto Rico, by Giselle Laffitte, partnership specialist (NYRO) of the U.S. Census Bureau; and Visualization of census data, by the Mr. Gerson Vázquez from Data Viz CMLSO Specialist.

In the same way, the activity will present the panel: Use and relevance of census data for public policy and research, with the participation of Dr. María E. Enchautegui Román from the Youth Development Institute, Dr. Viviana De Jesús Monge from the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras campus and Medical Sciences campus, demographer Raúl Figueroa, and planner Yoel Velázquez from Albizu University.

“During the past decade, Puerto Rico experienced a variety of economic, social and natural situations, whose impact and consequences will undoubtedly be reflected in this 2020 Census. This is why it is important to educate ourselves on this topic, so that, when the time comes, an informed analysis of the results can be made. At the Institute, we are 100% committed to the work of the Census,” said the Acting Executive Director of the Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico, Dr. Orville M. Disdier.

Those interested in participating must register at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/haz-que-cuentes-puerto-rico-censo-2020-tickets-76454612805

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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