THE Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) aims to increase its census 2011 accuracy by upping the compliance rate beyond that of developed nations.

STATIN revealed that it traditionally receives the greatest resistance in affluent communities, whilst inner-city leaders accommodate the canvassing of their communities.

“In the last census, we recorded a 87 per cent compliance and this time around we are hoping to do better,” stated Valerie Nam, director of census at STATIN, at the weekly Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters.

The US currently has a compliance rate of 72 per cent for its own census. In an attempt to gain greater access, STATIN will conduct preliminary meetings with strata groups and complexes in which middle-class and affluent Jamaicans live.

“There are persons doing those things as we speak. Sometimes it is just the security at the gates who decides that persons do not want to participate. So we are working on those things,” stated Merville Anderson, director of field services at STATIN, also at the Monday Exchange.

The local agency has also put up millions in an attempt to increase compliance. Specifically, the agency will spend $50 million on marketing, publicity and community sensitisation for the census over two years. The jingle and public face of the campaign is led by dancehall group Voicemail. STATIN previously stated that the census would cost $1.7 billion.

The population is expected to hit 2.7 million following the 2001 census, which counted some 2.6 million. Nam expects the annual rate of population growth to fall to “roughly 0.5 per cent” in the upcoming census, the result of migration, fall in births and deaths. The annual growth of the population dipped from 1.6 per cent in ’60s; 1.4 per cent in the ’70s; 1.2 in the ’80s; 0.9 per cent in the ’90s; and 0.9 in the 2000s.

More than 6,000 interviewers will fan out across the island on April 5 to start gathering data for the 2011 population and housing census in keeping with a United Nations recommendation that all member nations must carry out the exercise every 10 years. STATIN officials expect that it will take two months to acquire the data and that they will have a preliminary count ready in a year. The last population and housing census was conducted in 2001.