OFFICIALS of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin) are confident that despite several challenges Jamaica’s 2022 Population and Housing Census will be as accurate and credible as any it has done in the past.

“At this point Statin stands by our reputation. We are statisticians and one of the things we believe in is to put out information that is credible. And so we will ensure that the data we put out — because I think there is discussion around the data will be credible or not — is credible,” Statin Director General Carol Coy told the Jamaica Observer Press Club last week.

Coy was responding to claims that scores of Jamaicans have not been counted months after the collection of data for the island’s 15th population and housing census started in 2022.

But pointing to the experience of Statin in collecting and disseminating accurate and reliable date over the years, Coy said it will be no different this time around.

She pointed out that Statin has been working with international partners, including the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United States Statistics Division, which have helped countries faced with challenges similar to Jamaica in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to the challenges faced in census data collection worldwide, the global statistical community provided new methodological guidelines for assessing under-coverage and data quality as well as enhanced technical support for small area estimation.

“We don’t work in isolation. From we realised that we were running into these issues we reached out to our partners and this is not new for them because Latin America and the Caribbean were facing similar challenges.

“So we are working with them, they are working with us, so we are not working in isolation. They are supposed to come back to Jamaica, because they came and sat, looked at what we had. So they will be looking at the data that we come out with and they will be assessing it and providing guidance,” added Coy, as she noted that because Statin had transitioned to a short form in its data collection this time around there are some indicators that will not be available at the level of the electoral divisions.

“So, remember in the past there was some information that you could get at the enumeration level, now because we reduced the questionnaire you will not be able to get some indicators at that level,” said Coy.

She was supported by Statin’s Deputy Director General Leesha Delatie-Budair, who told
Observer editors and reporters that Statin has a responsibility to ensure that it puts out accurate data, “and that means that we go above and beyond to ensure that we validate the data”.

According to Delatie-Budair, with the challenges experienced with the census the agency introduced additional quality checks.

“For example, a census has never covered 100 per cent of the population, there are always measures of accessing the under-counted. With the support of our partners…we now have additional quality checks on the data and this then will ensure that when we finalise the data we are clear on the under-coverage. We have robust techniques for estimating the missing information, and that the final numbers can stand up to scrutiny locally, globally, internationally.

“It’s not just looking at the numbers, we do a lot of quality checks to ensure that this is so,” added Delatie-Budair as she pointed out that a lot of assessments will be done in the back end of the census to ensure that the figures are accurate.

Statin was established under the Statistics (Amendment) Act, 1984 and mandated to collect, compile, analyse, abstract, and publish statistical information relating to the commercial, industrial, social, economic, and general activities and condition of the people.