Vital statistics manual will ensure better planning

KINGSTON — The recently launched vital statistics manual will ensure greater accuracy and reliability of data collected by the island's civil registry and statistical agencies to better plan for the country's future and enable international bodies to more accurately measure Jamaica’s progress.

“The data is critical for us as a country to assess our own progress. It is used by the international community to assess our human development status so it is in our own interest to ensure that as a country, our data is of the quality that makes it comparable with other countries,” said Acting Manager of the Population and Health Unit at the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Toni-Shae Freckleton.

She was addressing a Think Tank held on June 30, at the JIS’ Half-Way-Tree Road headquarters in Kingston.

The manual, entitled: ‘Standard Definitions of Vital Statistics and Vital Events and Standards for Calculations of Vital Statistics,’ developed by the Vital Statistics Commission (VSC) with technical and financial support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was launched on June 28 by Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding.

With the launch, Jamaica has become the first Caribbean nation to produce a vital statistics manual, which streamlines components of its national civil registration and vital statistics system.

The development of the document, Mr. Golding said, was in pursuance of the Government’s commitment to be part of the international statistics framework.

“We need to have available to us, constantly, statistics that are accurate, statistics that command confidence and that can be used in decision making and in a whole range of other purposes,” he added.

Chief Executive Officer of the Registrar General’s Department (RGD), who also addressed the JIS Think Tank, explained that the manual allows for greater cross referencing and detail, which makes the data collected by the agency more comprehensive.

“For example, for marriages, we never collected the place of birth of the individual, birth record, your field of work, your profession, data like that…so we’re expanding to collect that data,” she said. 

She pointed out that once the agency has that data in place, it would provide useful to critical stakeholders like the PIOJ and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN).

Senior Statistician at STATIN, Juliet McCalla-Smith, said the manual will ensure that vital data such as births and deaths are recorded using internationally established standards.

She noted, for example, that “still births” will be recorded as “foetal deaths”, while changes will be made to how such deaths are registered.

“So it’s a bit of improvement being made to our system as well as addressing what is happening at the international level with the changes in the definitions of certain indicators,” she added.

By O. RODGER HUTCHINSON, JIS PR Officer