Recognition by CDC of the Institute's Violent Death Surveillance System

Announcements
IEPR
26 December 2025

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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Scotiabank, the Association of Industrialists and the Institute of Statistics present the Puerto Rico Manufacturing - Purchasing Managers Index

Scotiabank, the Association of Industrialists and the Institute of Statistics present the Puerto Rico Manufacturing - Purchasing Managers Index

Free workshops and webinars at the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

Free workshops and webinars at the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

For government officials and the general public

Starting today, Wednesday, February 22, 2023, pre-registration begins for the free offer of workshops and webinars offered by the Statistics Institute of Puerto Rico. This virtual offer of nine workshops with 16 sessions and three webinars seeks to provide solutions in the access, management and analysis of government statistical data and is carried out with rigor and quality in the development of content that is carried out by specialists.

The online format offers the opportunity to participate to government officials and the general public, since the format is asynchronous, that is, within the time available to the participant. In the same way, multiple sessions are included, allowing participants the flexibility to enroll on those dates that are most convenient. Interested individuals can complete pre-enrollment at Academy

The topics included are:

      • R statistical analysis software: one of the most commonly used open-access and user-friendly software for Data analytics and Data Science.
        • R basic: introductory workshop to help publicize and facilitate the adoption of this programming language for people interested in strengthening their resources for the processing, analysis, visualization and presentation of their statistical research.
        • RStudio: introduction to the integrated development environment (IDE, in English) for managing R, in the analysis, visualization and presentation of statistical analyses.
        • Tidycensus: R library that facilitates the access and processing of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, such as the Census, population estimates and the Community Survey.
      • Tableau Public: free platform that allows the use of interface commands to explore, create and publish data and visualizations online.
      • Resources from the U.S. Census Bureau:
        • Population and housing data: presentation and performance of practical exercises on the tool https://data.census.gov/ to search for data on population and housing in Puerto Rico.
        • Access to microdata from the Community Survey: tool for customizing variable crosses for the analysis of population and housing data in Puerto Rico.
        • QGIS for analyzing data by geographical regions: QGIS is an open source Geographic Information System (GIS). Together with data from the U.S. Census Bureau, maps can be generated to analyze housing, economic, social and demographic issues.
      • Resources from the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics:
        • Cost of Living Index and Calculator: presentation of a publication and Web App that allows us to compare the cost of living in Puerto Rico and different urban areas of the United States.
        • The Violent Death Surveillance System in Puerto Rico: project presentation and publication of data on violent deaths from a health perspective.

On the other hand, webinars are live sessions, in which participants can connect via the Internet to a platform where they can see and hear the speaker and ask the speaker questions after the session is completed.

The topics of the three webinars, with a capacity of 1,000 participants each, are:

  • Dominican population in Puerto Rico and its contrasts with the Puerto Rican population, 2015-2019: exposure to the microdata files of the U.S. Census Bureau and an example of their application to the study of the sociodemographic profile of the Dominican population living in Puerto Rico.
  • Geographic Delimitations of the U.S. Census Bureau: guidance on the various geographical levels used by the U.S. Census Bureau for the presentation of its data.
  • Violence and Femicide in Puerto Rico - Concepts and Statistics: aimed at advising participants on the importance of statistics on gender-based violence and femicide from a health perspective.

To access all the details of the Academies and Workshops Program, see Here.

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).

Statistics Institute reveals the Results Report of its 2018 Statistics Publication Calendar

Statistics Institute reveals the Results Report of its 2018 Statistics Publication Calendar

San Juan, PR, February 2, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) today released the Results Report of its 2018 Statistics Publication Calendar (CAPe), which includes the schedule for the publication of statistics on Puerto Rico for this calendar year and which, in turn, provides an evaluation of the commitment of government entities to users regarding the publication dates of their statistics for the calendar year 2017.


As detailed in the CAPe Results Report, for calendar year 2018, 22 state and federal agencies have been included in this commitment to publish their 45 statistical reports. Regarding the specific performance of compliance with the CAPe, the report highlights in its introduction that: “For 2017, the first 3 local agencies that achieved greater consistency in complying with their publication schedule on time were the Department of Labor and Human Resources (with the Employment and Unemployment report, as well as Non-Agricultural Wage Employment), the Department of Health (with its Weekly Report on Arboviral Diseases) and the Puerto Rico Police (with its Type I Crimes report)”.


On the other hand, the agencies with the lowest on-time compliance were the Puerto Rico Police (with their Fatal Accident Report), the Trade and Export Company (Retail Sales), the Port Authority (Air and Sea Cargo and Passengers) and the Tourism Company (Monthly Statistics Report).


The 2018 CAPe Results Report is available at the following link: https://estadisticas.pr/calendario. In addition, it has been distributed through the Institute's Statistical Report Subscription System, which allows users to receive directly to their email and free of charge, some of the statistical reports published by state and federal agencies. During the calendar year 2017, 34 different statistical reports published by 21 agencies of the Government of Puerto Rico and the Federal Government of the United States were released through the Subscription System. While the total number of subscriptions from its inception in 2008 to December 2017 amounts to a total of 1,609.189 million.

Throughout these 10 years of existence of the Statistics Publication Calendar, we have been able to verify that not only during 2017, but historically, the statistical publications of the Tourism Company, the Trade and Export Company, the Industrial Development Company and other entities attached to the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC), are among the monthly publications with the longest delays in publication or data lag”, said Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, executive director of the Institute.

One of the main reasons that led to the creation of the Institute was the excessive delay in producing certain statistics. That is why the Act established strict schedules for the publication of statistics with which the Institute has fully and consistently complied during its 10 years of existence.

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 IEPR has nearly 300 statistical products in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr. In addition, it is a guardian 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 Puerto Rico's SDC, the IEPR 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 at: 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