Raphael John-Lall

In­stead of re­ly­ing on per­son­al views to make in­formed de­ci­sions, cit­i­zens must make use of the new­ly re­leased da­ta from the 2011 Pop­u­la­tion and Hous­ing Cen­sus De­mo­graph­ic Re­port, says Dr Philomen Har­ri­son, Project Di­rec­tor, Re­gion­al Sta­tis­tics, Cari­com Se­cre­tri­at.

"To some ex­tent, we are all guilty of re­ly­ing too heav­i­ly on per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence and not ev­i­dence when it comes to views on how so­ci­ety should work. This year is be­ing des­ig­nat­ed the year of In­ter­na­tion­al Sta­tis­tics world­wide, with the mot­to Sta­tis­tics in Every­day Life. It is hoped that the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) can use this vol­ume and the oth­ers to fol­low, to ed­u­cate users in the use­ful­ness of sta­tis­tics," she said.

Dr Har­ri­son, speak­ing on Tues­day at the launch of the 2011 De­mo­graph­ic Re­port at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain. She com­mend­ed the CSO and T&T gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials for com­plet­ing the re­port in a short space of time.

"The di­rec­tor of sta­tis­tics must be high­ly com­mend­ed for be­ing able to re­lease this da­ta in a record time in a pe­ri­od of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 18 months af­ter the col­lec­tion in May 31, 2011. It is note­wor­thy in the his­to­ry of cen­sus-tak­ing in T&T, the re­lease of the first re­port nor­mal­ly takes ap­prox­i­mate­ly four years to be pro­duced and dis­sem­i­nat­ed," she said.

Dr Har­ri­son said T&T's cen­sus was part of a re­gion­al ap­proach to how cen­sus­es should be car­ried out.

"For the first time coun­tries were able to meet and de­lib­er­ate on the cen­sus ques­tion­naires to de­rive a com­mon core of ques­tions, to re­view the method­olo­gies and to ex­plore com­mon mech­a­nisms for dis­sem­i­nat­ing the cen­sus re­sults. The re­gion­al strat­e­gy was on­ly pos­si­ble through the sup­port of the in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment part­ners, in­clud­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), the Eu­ro­pean Union and the Unit­ed Na­tions Sta­tis­tics Di­vi­sion," she said.

To down­load or read the 2011 T&T Cen­sus re­port, click http://www.guardian.co.tt/busi­ness/2013-02-21/trinidad-and-to­ba­go-2011-de­mo­graph­ic-re­port