PRESS RELEASE

Puerto Rico Statistics Institute launches digital platform that will help monitor the progress of vaccination against COVID-19 in Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) made available today the COVID-19 Vaccination Indicator Platform, a digital tool that will help monitor vaccination progress in Puerto Rico, said its executive director, Dr. Orville M. Disdier. This mechanism will include indicators generated by the entity based on the quantity of vaccines administered and data provided by the Puerto Rico Department of Health, which meet the Institute's minimum quality criteria.

The platform presents, through tables, graphs and maps, the number of people vaccinated in Puerto Rico according to the doses administered; the demographic characteristics in terms of sex and age of the people vaccinated according to the dose; the age and sex distribution of the people vaccinated according to the dose; the people aged 16 and over vaccinated according to the dose per 10,000 inhabitants, as well as the 10 municipalities with the highest and lowest vaccination rates per 10,000 inhabitants.

“The purpose of this platform is to use recorded data on the vaccination process in Puerto Rico to generate some statistics and indicators. These indicators, although not intended to serve as a method of prediction or projection, will certainly help to know the progress of vaccination in Puerto Rico and the characteristics of those vaccinated, which will be an excellent source of information for all those interested in this topic,” said Disdier.

The platform is available through the link: COVID-19 Vaccination Indicator Platform. The content, as reported, will be updated weekly according to data availability.

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.

For more information you can visit the website: https://estadisticas.pr.gov/. In addition, you can follow the Institute on social networks, 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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PRESS RELEASE

DR. MARIO MARAZZI-SANTIAGO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

RESIDENT COMMISSIONER LAUNCHES CONGRESSIONAL BILL TO PROMOTE PUERTO RICO'S INCLUSION IN FEDERAL STATISTICS

The bill also requires that the Fiscal Oversight Board submit to Congress

an annual report on the budget allocated to the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

San Juan, PR, June 28, 2018 — The resident commissioner, Hon. Jennifer A. González Colón, filed this week in the United States Congress the H.R. 6211 project, better known as the Puerto Rico Data Collection Equality Act of 2018, which seeks to improve the collection and publication of statistics related to Puerto Rico, through the inclusion of Puerto Rico in federal statistics.

The project was created to follow up on the recommendations made in the Final report of the Task Force bipartisan congressional representative created under the federal PROMESA Act of December 2016, some of which are based on recommendations made by the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (Institute). For example, that report recommended that the Chief Statistician of the United States to develop a plan, in coordination with the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy, to collect and publish statistics on Puerto Rico, in a similar way as is done for states. He also recommended including Puerto Rico in several surveys of the U.S. Census Bureau, such as the Government Census, the American Housing Survey, among others, and at the same time proposed to seek to include Puerto Rico in the statistics prepared by several federal agencies, including the National Center for Education Statistics, The National Center for Health Statistics, The National Agricultural Statistical Service, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, The Energy Information Administration, among others.

As for the Institute, the above-mentioned congressional report recommended that it remain an independent entity of the Government of Puerto Rico and that its budget be increased, in accordance with its important duties. For these purposes, the new project filed by the Resident Commissioner requires that the Fiscal Oversight Board (JSF) provide the United States Congress with an annual report on the budget allocated to the Institute, specifically justifying the level of funds it provided for the Institute, in the general budget of the Government of Puerto Rico.

“We congratulate the Resident Commissioner for the initiation of this important project. In Washington, they are attentive to the actions being taken in Puerto Rico regarding the future of the Institute and its budget, because the problem with Puerto Rico's statistics also affects the United States. It would be counterproductive to deepen the crisis of credibility of our Government by consolidating the Institute within the Government,” said Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, executive director of the Institute.

In the coming days, the Senate and House of Representatives of Puerto Rico will seek to agree on a version of consensus regarding P. de la C. 1403, which consolidates the Institute within the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC). This project eliminates all of the Institute's independent governance structures, and in effect eliminates the Institute by converting it into the DDEC Statistics Program. In addition, the project orders the DDEC to outsource Puerto Rico's statistics system.

Thousands of people and scientists, 47 world-renowned scientific organizations, 16 congressmen, the Private Sector Coalition, the Transparency Network, the National Academy for the Advancement of the Sciences, the American Statistical Association, the Royal Statistical Society and the JSF, among many others, have recommended that the Institute be maintained as an independent entity of the Government of Puerto Rico, free from political intervention.

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 State Data Center (SDC) of 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

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They add data on adult health conditions to the interactive map on school and community profiles

Based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)” annual survey

August 2, 2022: The executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier, announced that a new layer has been added to the interactive map on school and community profiles, known as the “School Community Profile: The Interactive Map”. This time, the new layer deals with aspects of adult health. This new layer presents statistics on several health conditions in the adult population (18 years and older), such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer, among others. The data are based on information collected by the annual “Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)” survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Department of Health. This particular layer is entitled “Behavioral Risk Surveillance System 2020 (CDC)” and must be activated using the “layers” menu. The data correspond to the calendar year 2020 and the statistics are available at the regional level, segregated into the following six (6) regions: Arecibo, Bayamón, Caguas, Mayagüez, Metro-Fajardo and Ponce.

“These data allow us to geo-correlate the regional prevalence of health characteristics of adult residents of those regions, with the rest of the diverse characteristics of schools, students and the communities that are located within them,” explained Dr. Disdier.

Some aspects that this new layer allows us to observe are, for example, that the prevalence of diabetes for 2020 was 19.3% for the Arecibo region, while for the Metro-Fajardo region it was 13%. On the other hand, for the Arecibo region, the prevalence of kidney disease was 3.3%, and for the Caguas region it was 2.6%. “The contrasts between the health aspects of the regions with the rest of the characteristics of the students, and their communities in those regions, could help improve health promotion and health risk prevention strategies within each community,” emphasized Dr. Disdier.

The School Community Profile: The Interactive Map”, with this new layer and all the others, resides on the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics website and can be accessed at any time by interested parties at the following e-mail address: School community profile.

For technical questions about this tool, you can send an email to: preguntas@estadisticas.pr.

#estadisticaspr

About the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

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).

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