STATIN Enters Final Phases of 2022 Population and Housing Census

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) has entered the final phases of the 2022 Population and Housing Census.

Acting Director General, Leesha Delatie-Budair, said STATIN is working simultaneously on completing the 2022 census, while preparing for the upcoming census in 2031.

“Despite all of the challenges that we have faced in the 2022 Population and Housing Census, we are making every effort to conclude the census and ensure the quality and the reliability of the results,” Ms. Delatie-Budair said.

She was addressing Monday’s (November 25) Opening Session for the Workshop on Gridded Population Modelling and Small Area Estimation (SAE) for Census Imputation, held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, in New Kingston.

The week-long sensitisation, model development and capacity building workshop is being hosted by STATIN, in partnership with the POPGRID Data Collaborative.

“Over the next few days, the team from STATIN will work collaboratively with the POPGRID team, in order to improve STATIN’s capacity to use modelling techniques to address census and survey non-response,” Ms. Delatie-Budair said.

She explained that the workshops will take the form of a data challenge, where international and local experts will work in small teams to explore various models for imputing non-response on the 2022 census, as response rates were not optimal.

“When we are done with this process, the results will be evaluated by an independent panel of practitioners and other experts, ensuring that we have the highest quality data. This process will help STATIN to choose the most effective method for finalising the census results and we hope to achieve this by 2025,” Ms. Delatie-Budair said.

She added that the extended data collection for the 2022 census was unprecedented for Jamaica, but it was a feature of the 2020 round of censuses globally.

Meanwhile, Associate Director of Science Applications, CIESN, Climate School, Columbia University, Dr. Dana Thomson, shared that gridded population methodologies can be used to plan for the next census, especially if there has been a major change in population distribution.

“Gridded population and related methodologies help us to fill gaps where we have not been able to have full coverage in our census. The most valuable contribution that gridded population and other related data science approaches provide us is this platform for integrating diverse data sets. You can bring in building data sets, road data sets, nighttime lights, land use, land cover, along with things like building density and get a lot of information about what’s going on,” she said.

Dr. Thomson added that they are also scalable, because they are often used in integrating satellite imagery-based data sets and other global geographic information system (GIS) data sets.

POPGRID Data Collaborative is an international community of data providers, users and sponsors advancing the use and impact of geospatial population data.