STATIN urges public to cooperate with living conditions survey
Published:Monday | July 2, 2018 | 5:24 PM
The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) is appealing to members of the public to cooperate with officers who are out in the field gathering data for the 2018 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions.
The data collection got underway on May 16 and will continue until September 7.
Director of Surveys Dr Natalee Simpson is encouraging householders to accommodate the interviewers who may visit their homes.
“What we ask is that persons accommodate us when we come, because it (survey) is of national importance. It is about policy development, it is about making plans that will impact persons living in the country, and so, if we don’t have this data, we can’t make informed decisions,” she said in an interview with JIS News.
She assured that all information provided will be kept confidential.
“We all here at STATIN, including our field staff, sign a secrecy oath/confidentiality statement, so we have to keep the information confidential. All information that we obtain during our survey… when released, is only released in its aggregated form,” she pointed out.
“So you wouldn’t be able to tell that a particular dwelling was selected and the specific number of persons living in that dwelling, and you will not be able to tell that this information is associated with that dwelling,” she noted further.
Simpson said that all the interviewers are provided with an identification card with their name and picture as well as STATIN’s name and logo.
The survey, which is done annually, with the exception of a census year, is produced jointly by STATIN and the Planning Institute of Jamaica.
It was conceived of as a monitoring system for the evaluation of the quality and reach of Jamaica’s social services.
Simpson, in outlining the importance of the survey, said the information garnered helps to inform policy decisions and impact economic development.
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