2004 Vital Statistics Report

The Registrar General’s Department is pleased to present the 2004 Annual Vital Statistics Report to its valued stakeholders. In the Agency’s continued effort to improve upon its delivery of timely and accurate vital statistics, we have included several additional components to the publication which will enhance its assimilation for the reader:

Technical notes in respect of Registration procedures
(By recommendation from the Vital Statistics Commission Audit Team commissioned by Parliament, July 2005)
New tables as specified in the Overview
Guide to Tables – which details the data available in each table

We have enjoyed exceptional collaboration with all our interest groups and look forward to continued partnership in the years to come. We are grateful to all those who have participated in respect of these alliances. The Agency is committed to the initiation and support of both national and international objectives which seek to place emphasis on Jamaica’s civil registration and vital statistics systems.
We do indeed aim to satisfy.
Yours sincerely,
Patricia Holness (Dr.)
Chief Executive Officer
Registrar General and Deputy Keeper of the Records

Acknowledgement

Appreciation must be extended to all individuals and organisations who contributed in any way to the completion of this publication.

We are especially grateful for contributions from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Office of the Commissioner of Police and the Supreme Court.

Additionally, we recognise in particular the efforts of the dedicated and devoted staff members of the RGD.

Thanks also, to all hospitals, police officers, Courts officers, funeral homes, Local District Registrars (LDRs), Marriage Officers and hoteliers.

2004 Vital Statistics Report Acknowledgement

Appreciation must be extended to all individuals and organisations who contributed in any way to the completion of this publication.

Additionally, we recognise in particular the efforts of the dedicated and devoted staff members of the RGD.

Thanks also, to all hospitals, police officers, Courts officers, funeral homes, Local District Registrars (LDRs), Marriage Officers and hoteliers.

2004 Vital Statistics Report Overview

Introduction

As the sole entity responsible for Civil Registration and the National Vital Statistics Database for Jamaica, the main mandate of the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) is to ensure that each vital event (birth, death or marriage) that occurs in the country or in its waters is registered. It is also important that the vital statistics from these registrations be correct and accurate and that it be made available to the relevant persons on a timely basis. This is made possible by approximately 330 Local District Registrars and 1,400 Marriage Officers affiliated with the RGD.

In order for the vital statistics system to function optimally, civil registration must be an effective and efficient driving force behind it. The first tangible result of the change from manual to electronic methods of data storage and manipulation by RGD was the publication of the 2002 Vital Statistics Annual Report. This marked the initiation of vital statistics reporting from RGD’s electronic database.

This step was significant since prior to its advent, the data for 1995 to 2001 was prepared manually by accessing the physical registrations and compiling the data using electronic spreadsheets. In addition the majority of the procedures of compilation and production of the vital statistics were also manual. This meant that there was a greater chance of the data being incorrect and that the time for generation would also not be in keeping with the national standards.

The technological improvements at RGD, where data management is concerned, must and will continue. Coupled with this must be the integration of the efforts of all organisations that in any way play a part in civil registration.

Concerted collaboration between RGD and its various stakeholders is not a new concept, however, in the past few years specific programs geared toward this have been organised and successfully executed. Ultimately, the goal is for Jamaica’s entire national registration system to be fully functional, with very limited opportunity for a vital event that has occurred not to be registered in a timely manner.

In the past, several challenges have marred the performance of the country’s civil registration system. The timeliness of birth registration is sometimes affected in cases where the mother fails to settle hospital fees. In respect of death registrations, the delay is often due to the prolonged process which often accompanies the investigation and documentation of sudden or violent deaths. The documents needed to register these deaths are issued by the island’s Coroner’s Courts and Police Department.

Some of these inherent problems will have to be solved through legislation. Until the necessary reforms come to fruition, however, the RGD has in the interim, implemented numerous measures to help to alleviate the situation.
In respect of deaths, as stated above the RGD realises that delay in or prevention of registration is often due to either a lag in the processes in the courts or police department or simply due to a lack in the knowledge of the relatives of the deceased. These relatives are often not sufficiently informed on how to register the death or become frustrated with the process itself.

The documents needed for death registration are mentioned in detail in Types of Certification under the Deaths section of this report. Generally speaking however, sudden and violent deaths are usually registered using either a Post Mortem Examination Report, a Certificate of Coroner (Form D) or a Coroner’s Certificate of Findings of the Jury (Form E).

The RGD has initiated a collection campaign for all outstanding Post Mortem Examination Reports and Form Ds yet at the Resident Magistrates’ Courts. These documents are then checked against the existing death registrations to ensure that the specific deaths were not previously registered. Once this is established, the process of registration commences. What is different about this new registration process is that the RGD no longer waits for a relative or another person to come in with the document to initiate registration. In these cases, the Coroner who issues the document is entered as the Informant[1].

In addition to the timely capture of the data, the importance of the accuracy and correctness of the data must not be neglected. In respect of this, the greatest challenge that is presently being faced also involves death registrations, specifically the cause of death. In past reports, the ICD-10 “Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified” or (R00-R99) category was attributed to a significant number of deaths. This misleading phenomenon was also as a result of the tardiness of the Legal system with respect to death certification. Thus, many death registrations had no information entered for cause of death. Below is a table showing the number of R00-R99 cases for 1995 to 2004 (bearing in mind that a portion of these are legitimate R99 classifiable deaths).

The correction of this undesirable result is now being dealt with, however, and the high incidence of the “R99” ICD-10 code is decreasing year by year as seen previously. There are other concerns with the cause of death data provided by medical personnel and pathologists, however. In addition to the perennial problem of illegibly handwritten Medical Certificates of Cause of Death, the quality of the cause of deaths information on death certification documents are often not up to International standards. One of the common problems includes the apparent masking or failure of the reporting of the incidence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) for some decedents. In some cases, an unaccepted term or abbreviation for the condition known unofficially by medical doctors is cited on the document. Another challenge is that deaths caused by external causes, such as wounding, are often not specified with respect to intent (whether self-inflicted, accidental or assault). This is an increasingly important aspect of cause of death data which is poorly reported in Jamaica and indeed the Caribbean. In the near future the RGD will be intensifying its efforts to train the relevant professionals in order to eliminate the challenges as described.

The processes involved in the civil registration and vital statistics systems of Jamaica are currently in various phases of transition. It is envisioned that in the near future all these processes will individually be vastly improved and operate together both efficiently and effectively. This will facilitate a greater level of compatibility between the vital statistics produced by the country and that produced by the rest of the World.

Further improvements in the 2004 report:

For the 2004 Annual report the following are additions to the range of tables already reported on in reports for previous years:

Births

Table 6b Live Births Registered in 2004 Showing Late Registrations by Parish

Table 8a Live Births Occurring in 2004 by Parish of Occurrence and Live Birth Outcome

Deaths
Table 12a Deaths Occurring in 2004 by Parish and Place of Death

Table 15n Summary of Adult Female Deaths (5 - 100 years) by Cause and Parish of
Residence of Deceased for 2004

Table 15o Summary of Adult Male Deaths (5 - 100 years) by Cause and Parish of
Residence of Deceased for 2004

Table 15p Leading Causes of Deaths for All Adults (5 - 100 years) by Cause and
Parish of Residence of Deceased for 2004

In addition, a “Guide to Tables” has been included before each set of data for Births, Deaths, Marriages and Divorces for ease of reference.

[1] All death registrations, except those registered from Form Es, require an Informant at registration.

2004 Vital Statistics Report Definitions

In order to facilitate consistency in comparison and analysis of data used in the Annual Vital Statistics Reports, the following commonly used terms are defined below:

Births Registered All live births registered during the current calendar year. (Irrespective of year of occurrence, therefore these include late registrations.)

Births Occurring All live births occurring in the current calendar year. (Registered up to February of the following year for Preliminary reports and then up to December of the following year for the Final Report.)

Deaths Registered All deaths registered in the current calendar year. (Irrespective of year of occurrence, therefore these include late registrations.)

Deaths Occurring All deaths occurring in the current calendar year. (Registered up to February of the following year for Preliminary reports and then up to December of the following year for the Final Report.)

2004 Vital Statistics Report Population

Jamaica’s mean population continued to increase in 2004. It rose from 2,630,371 in 2003 to 2,644,604 in 2004, an increase of 14,233 or 0.5%. Previously, it had increased from 2,617,459 which was a magnitude of 12,912 also 0.5%. The country’s population growth rate over the past six years has averaged 0.6%.

POPULATION

Estimated Population and Annual Movement

The end of year population in 2004 stood at 2,650,900 which was a slight increase of 12,600 or 0.5 % from the previous year’s total of 2,638,300. Over the six-year period as shown in Table 1, the end of year population has consistently increased by an average of 0.5% from year to year for 1999 to 2004.

The net external movement, which speaks to the number of persons added to the population after taking the island’s emigration and immigration totals into account, decreased minimally from 1999 to 2002 but then increased significantly in 2003 then did not change significantly in 2004.

TABLE 1: ESTIMATED POPULATION AND ANNUAL MOVEMENT IN 1999 TO 2004

The total deaths registered from 1999 to 2004 showed a steady decline over the six-year period. Total births registered remained constant around 54,000 for 1999, 2000 and 2001. In 2002, there was a significant decrease to 48,104 and in the following two years there were minimal decreases.

Population Growth Rate

As previously mentioned, the population growth rate for Jamaica averaged 0.5% for 1999 to 2004. In 1999, the population stood at 2,581,700; however, by 2004 it had risen to 2,650,900.

TABLE 1a: POPULATION GROWTH RATE FOR 1999 TO 2004

In respect of the parishes’ mean populations, Kingston and St. Andrew led with a total of 658,515, then St. Catherine with 486,302 and Clarendon with 240,592. The parishes with the lowest populations were Hanover and Trelawny with totals of 66,518 and 73,103 respectively.

The trends for the rates per population of registered vital events reveal interesting facts. In respect of live births per population, the leading parishes were Manchester, St. James and St. Ann with 29.5, 22.5 and 21.7 respectively. Conversely Hanover had the lowest rate at 7.9. For deaths, the top three parishes were Manchester, Kingston and St. Andrew and St. James with 7.2, 6.4 and 6.3, while St. Catherine had the lowest with 3.7. Parishes with high rates of marriage included the hotel-rich parishes of Hanover, St. Ann and St. James with rates of 25.2, 23.1 and 22.5. Clarendon had the lowest rate of marriage at 3.1. Westmoreland, Portland and Manchester led stillbirth rates with 20.0, 19.8 and 17.7 respectively while St. Thomas had no stillbirths being registered in 2004.

TABLE 2: ESTIMATED POPULATION OF PARISHES- LIVE BIRTHS, DEATHS, MARRIAGES, STILL BIRTHS AND CORRESPONDING RATES FOR 2004

Crude Birth Rate
As a part of the continued improvement of the quality of data presented in Annual Reports, Crude Birth Rate (CBR) is now calculated using live birth occurrences, whereas in the past registration totals were utilised due to the delay in a large percentage of birth registrations. The incidence of delay is now at significant lower levels than in previous years. In 1997 CBR peaked at 21.6, this being the highest for the eight-year period. It decreased to 20.0 in 1998 and continued a steady decline in the following years to 19.0, 18.8, 18.5, 16.9, 16.5 and finally to 16.1 in 2004.
TABLE 1b: CRUDE BIRTH RATE FORLIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED-1997 TO 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Birth

The number of live births registered in Jamaica decreased by 1,603 or 3.3% in 2004 to 45,980 compared with 47,583 in 2003. The month of January has since 2001 made the highest contribution of 11% to total births registered. In 2004, however, the month of March had the most registrations contributing 9.8% followed by January with 9.7%.

Kingston, Manchester and St. Catherine were the leading parishes contributing 9,692 (21.1%), 5,702 (12.4%), 5.596 (12.2%) live birth registrations respectively. Together, they were responsible for 45.7% of the total registrations. These parishes have excelled in these positions since 1999. The parish of Hanover has continued contribute least registrations, recording 527 (1.1%). This can be attributed to the fact that Hanover has the lowest population distribution.

TABLE 3A: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF REGISTRATION

2004 Vital Statistics Report Live Births Occurring

The year 2004 recorded the occurrences of 42,448 live births in Jamaica, 959 or 2.2% less than 2003 which had a total of 43,407. The number of live births occurring has been on a downward trend reflecting a decrease of 12.9% since 2000 when there was a record total of 48,717.

In Graph 1 indicates the monthly trend for each parish is seen for live birth occurrences.

GRAPH 1: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF OCCURRENCE

The last quarter prevailed in recording the highest live birth occurrences. The month of October placed first with 4,320 (10.2%), December was next with 4,161 (9.8%) and November followed closely in third place with 4,153 (9.8%) of the total. In 2003, the first and last quarter took the top places as October, January and November recorded 4,197 (9.7%), 4,147 (9.6%) and 4,025 (9.3%) respectively.

TABLE 3: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF OCCURENCE

2004 Vital Statistics Sex Ratio

A total of 23,462 male and 22,516 female live births were registered in 2004, yielding a sex ratio of 1,042 males per 1,000 females (or male to female ratio of 51 to 49) compared to 2003 sex ratio of 1038 (or male to female ratio of 51 to 49). The annual sex ratio has changed very little over the past few years. Nevertheless, substantial differences exist in the sex ratios on the parish and regional levels.

The parish of Portland has once again recorded the highest sex ratio in live birth registrations with 1,154 males per 1,000 females (or 53.6 to 46.4 male to female ratio) It is interesting to note, that the parishes of St. Thomas and Westmoreland recorded the lowest sex ratios of 989 and 987 respectively (or male to female ratio of 49.7 to 50.3); and were exceptional as they were the only parishes showing females dominating males. The North Eastern Region had the highest sex ratio of 1054 (or male to female ratio of 51.3 to 48.7), and Western with the lowest of 1,022 (or male to female ratio of 50.5 to 49.5).

Similarly, live birth occurrences had a sex ratio of 1,041 males per 1,000 females (or a male to female ratio of 51 to 49). The same parishes and regions highlighted remained in their respective positions of highest and lowest in the recording of sex ratios (Portland 1,186; St Thomas and Westmoreland, 991 and 993 respectively; North Eastern region with 1069; and Western now shared position with Southern at 1,016.

The sex ratios for registrations and occurrences by parish of residence of mother generally reflect a similar trend. Slight variations existed as only the parish of Westmoreland showed females dominating males and the South-Eastern region dominated in sex ratio for live birth registrations.

TABLE 3b: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PARISH AND SEX

TABLE 3c: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND SEX
TABLE 3d: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER AND SEX OF CHILD
TABLE 3e: LIVE BIRTH OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER AND SEX OF CHILD

2004 Vital Statistics Sex Ratio

TABLE 3b: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PARISH AND SEX

2004 Vital Statistics Report Father’s Registration – Births In and Out of Wedlock

Since the 1995 publication, the number of children born in wedlock has varied between 12 – 18% of live births occurring in Jamaica. For this current year, 2004, births in wedlock totalled 6,835 or 16.1% and out of wedlock 35,613 or 83.9%. These figures were on par with 2003 which saw in wedlock at 7,107 or 16.4% and out of wedlock at 36,300 or 83.6% of live births occurring.

Of the total live births occurring, both in wedlock and out of wedlock, 54.7% were to fathers who had their particulars entered on the birth registration form; an increase of 0.5% over that of 2003. Of illegitimate births, that is births out of wedlock, only 16,397 or 38.6% father’s accepted paternity, an increase of 0.8% over 2003. Furthermore, of these out of wedlock occurrences, 16,324 or 99.6% were to father’s registered on signature, otherwise known as “A and B” registration, and the remaining 73 or 0.4% were on Declaration or “Status”. In comparison, 2003 saw a similar experience with 99.1% registered on “A and B” and 0.9% on “Status” registrations. (Table 4)

The agency continues to increase its efforts to educate fathers of the importance of having their particulars entered on their child’s birth record. Its efforts are been rewarded as the proportion of father’s registered from the “out of wedlock” category has increased. Since 1999, the percentage of these fathers registered for births out of wedlock has increased from 36.7% in 1999 to 46.0% in the current year. However, there is still more progress to be made and the agency continues to include in its efforts the use of regularly presented educational programmes in the electronic media, along with outreaches to schools and other relevant interest groups.

(Table 4)

TABLE 4: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH OF OCCURRENCE SHOWING IN WEDLOCK AND OUT WEDLOCK

2004 Vital Statistics Time of Registration

It is of utmost importance that all registrations take effect in a timely manner, as this aids the agency and ultimately policy makers in social, educational and health planning for the country.

The agency has continually advised the public to ensure that registration of a vital event, be it birth or death, happens immediately or within three months after such occurrence. However, registration can be effected up to twelve months outside of this time limit and still would be regarded as on being on time. Once twelve months have elapsed such a registration would be deemed “late” and can only be effected upon the Registrar General issuing an “Authority for Late Registration” to the Local District Registrar.

Table 6 gives a breakdown of 2004 live birth occurrences illustrating those registered in the same month of occurrence and the delay in registration which appears in categories of up to three months and over three months up to twelve months. Of the 42,448 births which occurred, 16,903 or 39.8% were registered within the same month. This indicates that same month registrations were on par with 2003 which had 17,292 or 39.8%.

The delay in registrations under one year but over three months indicates an improvement of 9.1% as there were 2,810 or 6.6% such registrations compared to 6,809 or 15.7 % in 2003. Such prompt response in registration can be attributed to the fact that 98.1% of live births for this current year occurred in institutions. As a result the local district registrars upon receiving the notification of birth would begin the registration process. This is the first year we have experienced such low percentage delay since the 1995 publication.

Examination of the percentage delay on a parish level reveals that St. Catherine has been recording the highest delay since 2001. In 2004, St. Catherine recorded 37.2% of its live births as percentage delay for over three months and under one year. Though this is a slight decline of 3.1% down from the previous year’s delay of 40.3%, this is nonetheless unfavourable considering that 93.8% of its live births occurred in institutions. Next in line in respect of delays were the parishes of Clarendon with 7.4%, St. James with 6.1% and St. Elizabeth with 2.7%

There were parishes however, which were very prompt in there recording and experienced delay of less than one per cent: St. Andrew, St. Mary and Hanover each had 0.8% delay; St. Thomas and Portland each 0.6% and Westmoreland with the lowest recording of 0.1%. Overall, congratulations are in order to the stakeholders for this great level of improvement as this is the lowest delay in registrations recorded since the 1995 publication. It is anticipated that all parishes realise a delay of less than 1% for registrations over three months and over one year.

(Table 6)

TABLE 6: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND SHOWING TIME OF REGISTRATION

Table 6a, a table which first originated in the 2000 report provides very useful information for analysis of time of registration. Of the 45,980 live birth registrations in 2004, 36,753 or 79.9% occurred in the same year of registration an increase of 2% over 2003. The parishes of St. Andrew, St. Thomas, Portland and Westmoreland had over 90% of their live births which were registered in the same year of occurrence. However, on average those registered in 2004, but occurred in 2003 accounted for 14.1% of all live births.

(Table 6a)

TABLE 6a: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 SHOWING LATE REGISTRATIONS BY PARISH

In Table 6b, the year’s registrations are categorised by the time span between the date of occurrence and the date of registration. So for all the live births registered in 2004, those “within one year of occurrence” or “on time registrations” as the name suggests, are those live births that were registered no later than one year after the occurrence of the event. “Late registrations” are those that were registered later than one year of occurrence of the live birth. For 2004, it is observed that 43,125 or 93.7% of the 45,980 live births registered in 2004 were “on time” or registered within one year of the occurrence of the vital event.

(Table 6b)

TABLE 6b: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 SHOWING LATE REGISTRATIONS BY PARISH

2004 Vital Statistics Time of Registration

It is of utmost importance that all registrations take effect in a timely manner, as this aids the agency and ultimately policy makers in social, educational and health planning for the country.

(Table 6)

TABLE 6: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND SHOWING TIME OF REGISTRATION

(Table 6a)

TABLE 6a: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 SHOWING LATE REGISTRATIONS BY PARISH

(Table 6b)

TABLE 6b: LIVE BIRTHS REGISTERED IN 2004 SHOWING LATE REGISTRATIONS BY PARISH

2004 Vital Statistics Report Age Groups

In 2004 the largest age group of mother giving birth was the 20-24 group with 11,596 or 27.3% of the live births. Next were the 25-29 and 15-19 groups with 9,407 (22.1%) and 7,956 (18.7%) respectively. A similar trend was observed in the previous year with the same group contributions as follows: 20-24 with 11,954 (27.5%), 25-29 with 9,362 (21.6%) and 15-19 with 8,110 (18.7%).

As expected and as has been the past trend, the contribution from each live birth order decreases as the birth order increases. So the largest group overall would be the first born, then second born, third born and continuing in the same pattern as live birth order increases. Consequently, the two largest individual cohorts belong to the first born group for mother being in the 15-19 and 20-24 age groups with 6,456 and 5,078 respectively. Previously these groups also led with 6,430 and 4,949 respectively.

Of interest in the current year were occurrences of a mother in the 15-19 age group having her third child, one in the 35-39 group having her thirteenth child, another three in the 45-49 group each having their thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth child respectively and finally one mother from the 50 and over group having her fifth child.

(Table 9)

When the live birth order by parish of occurrence pattern is examined, it is observed that for each parish, except one, the largest group of mothers comes from the 20-24 group. As has been the case for the past several years, St. Andrew is the only parish to depart from this trend as its largest age group is the 25-29 group. This is an interesting phenomenon which occurs each year. A possible reason for it could be that a significant portion of the mothers who give birth in institutions in St. Andrew come from more affluent sections of the populace and delay having children until later years when compared to other parishes.

(Table 9a)

Looking at Table 9b, however, it is observed that for all parishes of residence of mothers, the largest group belongs to the 20-24 group. Thus a more accurate pattern is shown with mother’s parish of residence data with regard to age group patterns of mothers giving birth in the year. The parishes with the largest percentages for the 20-24 age group were Westmoreland with 30.7% and St. Thomas with 29.6%.

(Table 9b)

TABLE 9: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY AGE OF MOTHER AND LIVE BIRTH ORDER

TABLE 9a: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY AGE OF MOTHER AND PARISH OF OCCURRENCE

TABLE 9b: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY AGE OF MOTHER AND BY PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER

2004 Vital Statistics Report Age Groups

(Table 9)

(Table 9a)

(Table 9b)

TABLE 9: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY AGE OF MOTHER AND LIVE BIRTH ORDER

TABLE 9a: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY AGE OF MOTHER AND PARISH OF OCCURRENCE

TABLE 9b: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY AGE OF MOTHER AND BY PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER

2004 Vital Statistics Report Death

Deaths Registered

For the year 2004, there were 14,050 deaths registered. This was 889 less than the previous year’s total of 14,939, a decrease of 6.0%. The total number of death registrations in 2002 was very similar to that observed in 2003 at 14,931.

As has been the trend for previous years, the percentage contributions of the four regions to death registrations in 2004 were as follows: South Eastern with 6,496 (46.2%), Southern with 3,235 (23.0%), Western with 2,424 (17.3%) and finally North Eastern with 1,895 (13.5%).

The years 2003 and 2002 had comparable percentage and absolute regional contributions when they had the respective values of 7,317 (49.0%) and 6,929 (46.4%) for South Eastern, 3,139 (21.0%) and 3,343 (22.4%) for Southern, 2,468 (16.5%) and 2,540 (17.0%) for Western and 2,015 (13.5%) and 2,119 (14.2%) for North Eastern.

The three leading parish with respect to volume of registrations were again St. Andrew, Kingston and St. Catherine with 2,224 (15.8%), 1,980 (14.1%) and 1,778 (12.7%). Together, these parishes accounted for 42.6% of all deaths registered in the year. The circumstance was similar in 2003 when the contributions from these parishes were respectively 2,621 (17.5%), 2,286 (15.3%) and 1,821 (12.2%). In 2002, the leading parishes were Kingston with 2,314 (15.5%), St. Andrew 2,222 (14.9%) and St. Catherine with 1,800 (12.1%).

Regarding monthly death registration totals, January had the highest number in the current year with 1,442 (10.3%) as had been the case for 2003 and 2002, when it had 1,560 (10.4%) and 1,492 (9.9%) respectively. Additionally, months with high registrations in 2004 were March with 1,249 (8.9%) and June 1,240 (8.8%). In 2003, December and February followed with 1,350 (9.0%) and 1,294 (8.7%). In 2002, the months which followed January were July and October with 1,407 (9.3%) and 1,293 (8.6%) respectively.

(Table 10a)

TABLE 10a: DEATHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF REGISTRATION

2004 Vital Statistics Report Place of Death

For this current reporting year, in addition to reporting place of death for registered deaths, it is also reported for 2004 occurrences. The same basic trends are seen in both tables.

As in previous reports, the place of death is categorised into three types: Public Hospital, Private Hospital. Public Hospitals are government-run institutions, that is, funded by the government while Private, as the name suggests, are supported by non-government or private persons or entities. For the purpose of this report, public and private health institutions are listed in the Appendices. All other places of deaths which are not special health institutions as listed here are classified as “Other”.

In the table showing registered death, it is observed that the parishes with the highest percentages of deaths registered and taking place in public hospitals were Kingston (80.2%), St. James (60.4%) and St. Thomas (48.8%) of their respective parish totals. The leading parishes in respect of private institutions were Kingston, St. Andrew and St. James with 8.1%, 5.8% and 5.8% respectively. For death in other places, the leading parishes were all from the Southern Region: Manchester (84.0%), St. Elizabeth (78.5%) and Clarendon (61.7%).

The average percentages for all parishes were Public (46.4%), Private (3.3%) and Other (50.3%). For the regions, the respective percentages were as follows: South Eastern - 57.2%, 4.7% and 38.1%, North Eastern – 43.4%, 1.1% and 55.5%, Western – 50.5%, 3.3% and 46.2% and Southern – 23.2%, 2.0% and 74.8%.

A comparable trend was seen for deaths occurring in the year 2004 where the parishes with the highest percentages of public deaths were for the same three parishes as for deaths registered with 81.5% (Kingston), 61.6% (St. James) and 51.0% (St. Thomas) for their respective parish totals. For private hospitals, the leading parishes were also the same: Kingston, St. Andrew and St. James with 8.3%, 6.0% and 6.0%. For other places of death, the top three parishes were again Manchester (84.2%), St. Elizabeth (77.8%) and Clarendon (61.2%).

The overall island percentages were Public (46.7%), Private (3.4%) and Other (49.9%). For regional percentages, these were as follows: South Eastern – 58.3%, 4.9% and 36.8%, North Eastern – 43.2%, 1.0% and 55.8%, Western – 51.0%, 3.3% and 45.8% and Southern – 23.4%, 2.0% and 74.7%.

TABLE 12: DEATHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PARISH AND PLACE OF DEATH

TABLE 12a: DEATHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND PLACE OF DEATH

2004 Vital Statistics Report Teenage Deliveries

Live births to mothers under 15 totalled 278 and to the 15-19 group totalled 7,956. Together these accounted for 8,234 or 19.4% of all births. In the previous year, the under 15 group had 311 while the 15-19 had 8,110 which totalled 8,421 or 19.4% of the births in that year.

As expected, the single largest cohort belonged to the 15-19 group of mothers who were giving birth to their first live born with 6,456 or 15.2% of all births. In 2003 this cohort had 6,430 or 14.8%. This indicates an increase of 0.4 percentage points for 2004 compared to 2003. For the previous three years the percentage of these births had progressively decreased.

In respect of parish of occurrence, the parishes with the highest percentage of its birth to all mothers 19 and under were Trelawny and Hanover with 25.2% and 22.8%. The parish with the lowest percentage was St. Andrew with 6.3%. Examining this data trend for parish of residence of mother, it is observed that Trelawny still led with 23.8% of its births to mothers 19 and under followed by Clarendon with 21.8% while the parish with the smallest percentage was St. Catherine with 16.0%.

(Tables 9, 9a and 9b)

In Chart 1, it can be seen that for age groups 15-19, 20-24, 30-34 and 35-39, there were slight decreases from 2003 to 2004 in respect of the number of live births to mother in each age category. In the under 15 and 25-29 groups there were no significant changes. In 2003, the picture differed when decreases were registered from 2002 to 2003 for age groups 15-19, 25-29 and 30-34; the under 15 and 35-39 age groups did not show changes while the 20-24 group was the sole category to experience an increase.

CHART 1: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2003 VS. 2004 FOR MOTHERS OF AGE GROUPS UNDER 15 YEARS TO 35-39 YEARS

Chart 2 focuses on the comparison for 2003 and 2004 live births to mothers in the 15-19 age group for first to fourth birth orders. First born births increased slightly from 2003 to 2004. Conversely second born births decreased slightly for the same period. The third born group also showed a minimal decline. In respect of the mean totals for each group per year, mothers in the 15 to 19 age group having their first child averaged around 6,400. The group of the same age having their second child averaged around 1,400. The third born category averaged below 200 while on the chart, the number for fourth born was negligible.

CHART 2: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2003 vs 2004 FOR TEENAGE MOTHERS (15-19 YEARS OLD)

In Graph 2, the percentage change in the number of live births to mothers in the 15-19 age group having their first to fourth child for the period 2003 to 2004 is shown. For three of the four live birth orders, there were negative percentage changes from 2003 to 2004. There was a slight percentage increase of 0.4 for first born for the period, however, progressively larger percentage decreases were recorded for second, third and fourth born to 15-19 year olds at the following magnitudes: -8.5%, -22.2% and -38.1% respectively. In the previous one-year comparison for 2002 to 2003, there were percentage decreases for the first, second and third born groups (-2.7%, -11.9% and -10.7% respectively) but a significant percentage increase for fourth born at 50.0%.

GRAPH 2: PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN NUMBER OF LIVE BIRTHS TO TEENAGE MOTHERS (15-19 YEARS OLD) FOR THE PERIOD 2003-2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Age and Sex Classification

As indicated in last year’s report, two terms frequently used in the Mortality sections are “adult” and “infant”. The term “adult” as used in the context of this publication, refers to all individuals of the age 5 years and over. The term “infant” by international standards usually refers to individuals under 1 year old. For ease of identification in this analysis, however, individuals under 1 year as well as those 1 to 4 years are referred to as “infants”. In Tables 14 to 14b, “infant” and “pre-school” deaths are referred to. Here, infant denotes the traditional “under 1 year” definition while “pre-school” relates to all other individuals in the under 5 age group.

There was a total of 14,050 deaths registered in 2004 and of that number 6,857 (48.8%) were adult males, 6,606 (47.0%) were adult females, 310 (2.2%) were infant males and 277 (2.0%) were infant females. In the previous year, the proportions were only slightly different at 7,408 (49.6%), 6,910 (46.2%), 341 (2.3%) and 280 (1.9%) respectively.

In 2004, adult deaths totalled 13,463 (95.8%) and infant deaths, 587 (4.2%). The previous year’s respective figures were 14,318 (95.8%) and 621 (4.2%).

TABLE 14a: DEATHS FOR INFANT AND PRE-SCHOOL MALES BY CAUSE AND AGE FOR 2004

TABLE 14b: DEATHS FOR INFANT AND PRE-SCHOOL FEMALES BY CAUSE AND AGE FOR 2004

TABLE 15a; SUMMARY OF ADULT FEMALE DEATHS BY CAUSE AND AGE (5-100 YEARS) FOR 2004

TABLE 15c; SUMMARY OF ADULT MALE DEATHS BY CAUSE AND AGE (5-100 YEARS) FOR 2004

Chart 4 shows the age / sex distribution for 2004. It varies slightly from last year’s ratio of 50:46:2:2 and now reflects one of 49:47:2:2.

CHART 4: DEATHS REGISTERED IN 2004 BY PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL DEATHS IN EACH MAJOR AGE/SEX CATEGORY

2004 Vital Statistics Report Crude Death Rate

Crude Death Rate, as shown in the table below, fluctuated over the 1997 to 2004 eight-year period. It increased from 5.9 in 1997 to a high of 6.7 in 1999 and then displayed a general downward trend from that year to the rate of 5.3 in the current year.

TABLE 1e: CRUDE DEATH RATE FOR 1997 TO 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Deaths Occurring

There were 13,364 deaths which occurred in 2004 and are registered. The previous year had 14,667 death occurrences which indicates a decrease of 1,303 or 8.9% from 2003 to 2004. The 2004 total was also less than the 14,042 in 2002 by 678 or 4.8%.

As with population and live birth trends, the regional contributions were in the expected order of South Eastern, then Southern, Western and North Eastern. Additionally, the four regions fluctuated over the three-year period of 2002 to 2004. In 2004, the death occurrence regional totals respectively were 6,128 (45.9%), 3,158 (23.6%), 2,237 (16.7%) and 1,841 (13.8%). In 2003, they were 7,134 (48.6%), 3,114 (21.2%), 2,436 (16.6%) and 1,983 (13.5%). In 2002, the contributions were 6,405 (45.6%), 3,198 (22.8%), 2,426 (17.3%) and 2,013 (14.3%).

In 2004, the three leading months for death occurrences were January, June and October with 1,352 (10.1%), 1,178 (8.8%) and 1,174 (8.8%) respectively. In 2003, January, December and March led with 1,451 (9.9%), 1,331 (9.1%) and 1,257 (8.6%) respectively. The situation differed in 2002, however, as the leading months were July, October and April with 1,369 (9.7%), 1,262 (9.0%) and 1,216 (8.7%) respectively.

TABLE 10: DEATH OCCURRING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF OCCURRENCE

2004 Vital Statistics Report Leading Causes of Deaths by Major Categories - Ages 5 to 100 years

In addition to examining cause of deaths with respect to individual causes, it is also meaningful to look at the distribution of deaths across the major categories. Deaths are collated according to the nineteen major cause categories of the ICD-10 system.

As with the previous year’s distribution pattern, “Diseases of the circulatory system”, “Neoplasms” and “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” were the three leading major categories for adult females in 2004. They had the following respective contributions: 2,561 (38.8%), 1,250 (18.9%) and 1,180 (17.9%); percentages being of the total number of adult female deaths. In 2003 these categories also led with: 2,614 (37.8%), 1,222 (17.7%) and 1,087 (15.7%). For the “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” category, the total is elevated mainly due to the presence of Diabetes mellitus in the category.

The top three major categories for adult female deaths accounted for 4,991 or 75.6% of all adult female deaths in 2004. For the previous year, they accounted for 4,923 or 71.2%.
TABLE 15e: ADULT FEMALE DEATHS SHOWING MAJOR CATEGORIES BY CAUSE AND AGE (5-100 YEARS) FOR 2004

The corresponding data for adult male deaths was similar in that the three leading categories were the same. Their contributions were as follows: “Diseases of the circulatory system” with 2,275 (33.2%), “Neoplasms” with 1,548 (22.6%) and “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” with 692 (10.1%). The two leading major categories were the same for the previous year: “Diseases of the circulatory system” with 2,317 (31.3%) and “Neoplasms” with 1,638 (22.2%). The third leading category, however, was “Diseases of the respiratory system” with 629 (8.5%).

The three leading major categories combined totalled 4,515 or 65.9% of all adult male deaths. Previously it had been 4,584 or 61.9%.
TABLE 15f: ADULT MALE DEATHS SHOWING MAJOR CATEGORIES BY CAUSE AND AGE (5-100 YEARS) FOR 2004

The combined data for adult males and females yielded the same results for the three leading cause of deaths. “Diseases of the circulatory system” were attributed to 4,836 (35.9%), “Neoplasms” with 2,798 (20.8%) and “Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases” with 1,872 (13.9%). This is comparable to the previous year’s values of 4,931 (34.4%), 2,860 (20.0%) and 1,711 (11.9%) respectively.

Combined, the leading three major categories accounted for 9,506 deaths or 70.6% of all adult deaths. In the previous year, they accounted for 9,502 or 66.4% of all adult deaths.

TABLE 15g: ALL ADULT DEATHS SHOWING MAJOR CATEGORIES BY CAUSE AND AGE (5-100 YEARS) FOR 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Types of Certification

As outlined in previous reports, deaths which occur in Jamaica require certification by a qualified medical officer, doctor or pathologist. This process involves the determination of the events of cause of death as well as its documentation, along with all relevant demographic data for the deceased. This must be done according to the prescribed format under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act. The various forms of death certification include Medical Certificate of Cause of Death, Post Mortem Examination Report, Certificate of Coroner (Form D) or Coroner’s Certificate of the Findings of the Jury (Form E).

The Medical Certificate of the Cause of Death is normally completed by a medical doctor or officer who had been overseeing the care and/or treatment of the decedent and had last done so no more than six months before death had occurred. The essential purpose of the Medical Certificate of the Cause of Death is that the officer who completes and certifies it is reasonably certain of the cause of death of the decedent that he or she enters on it. If, for instance, someone was recently under the care of a physician and then died unexpectedly or suddenly, the physician might be in some doubt as to whether the morbid or disease condition, for which he or she had been attending the deceased prior to death, really was sufficient to cause the demise. In this case, a post mortem may become necessary.

2004 Vital Statistics Report Types of Certification

2004 Vital Statistics Report Deaths Reported by the Police

As has been the procedure since 2002, the RGD receives Sudden and Violent death data from the Jamaica Constabulary Force, specifically through the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) and includes the presentation of this data along with data from RGD’s database. The CCN provides the RGD with data from its database for the specified reporting year for the following Sudden and Violent death categories: i) Fatal Shootings, ii) Motor Vehicle Accidents, iii) Murder and iv) Suicide.

The deaths reported by the Police are presented in this section, by themselves and also combined with RGD’s death data. Only police data which is unique to RGD’s data is added however, since some of these deaths have already been registered by the RGD.

There were a total of 1,981 deaths reported by the police in 2004. In the previous year, 1,560 deaths were reported which indicates a significant increase of 421 or 27.0%. A total of 1,679 were reported in 2002 which indicated a minimal decline of 119 or 7.1% from 2002 to 2003. Overall from 2002 to 2004 there was an increase of 302 or 18.0%.

· Regions

For 2004, as is expected, the South Eastern region accounted for 1,274 or 64.3% of all deaths reported by the police. In the previous year, this region had 952 or 61.0% of the 1,560 deaths for the entire island. This is an absolute increase of 322 or 33.9% from 2003 to 2004.

Of all South Eastern deaths, Kingston, St. Andrew and St. Catherine accounted for 1,238 or 97.2% of that region’s deaths or 62.5% of the island’s deaths. For 2003, the corresponding value was 916 or 96.2% of regional total and 58.8% of all police-reported deaths.

In respect of the remaining regions, the Western region had 317 (16.0%) police-reported deaths, the Southern region had 256 (12.9%) and the North Eastern had 134 or 6.8%. In 2003, the respective values were: Western – 282 (18.1%), Southern – 226 (14.5%) and North Eastern – 100 (6.4%).

Examination of the data by month of occurrence, reveals that October and June were the leading months with 200 deaths (10.1%) and 199 deaths (10.0%) respectively. Conversely, March had the lowest number with 121 or 6.1%.

TABLE 15h: SUDDEN AND VIOLENT DEATHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF OCCURRENCE (AS REPORTED BY THE POLICE)

· Police and RGD Data Combined

As mentioned at the beginning of this section, the police-reported deaths are matched against RGD’s database. This is done using certain key identifier fields. Table 15j is a result of this matching process and is a summary of the police-reported data without these matches. Of the 1,981 death total for 2004, there were 199 matches and the unique police-reported deaths totalled 1,782. In the previous year, there were 191 matches and 1,369 unique death occurrences.

TABLE 15i: SUDDEN AND VIOLENT DEATHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF OCCURRENCE (ADJUSTED FOR THOSE REGISTERED)

The next process was to combine the unique data with RGD’s death occurrences for 2004. Table 15j therefore is a combination of Table 10 and 15i. This is the addition of the 13,364 (Table 10) and 1,782 (Table 15i) which totals 15,146 deaths. This complement represents all 2004 death occurrences. For 2003, the combination of RGD and police-reported data totalled 16,036.

TABLE 15j: TOTAL DEATHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH AND MONTH OF OCCURRENCE (RGD AND POLICE DATA COMBINED)

· Police Data – Cause of Death by Sex and Age Groups

The police-reported data with respect to underlying cause of death is presented in Table 15k, 15l and 15m. The data represented applies to the 1,782 unique deaths. This indicated an increase of 413 or 30.2% over the previous year’s total of 1,369 deaths. Of the 1,782 deaths, there were 303 deaths attributed to “Transport accidents”, 40 deaths to “Intentional self harm” or suicide 1,333 deaths to “Assault” and 106 deaths to “All other external causes”.

TABLE 15k: SUMMARY OF MALE AND FEMALE SUDDEN AND VIOLENT DEATHS OCCURING BY CAUSE AND AGE (1-100 YEARS) FOR 2004· Males

Of all 1,782 unique police-report deaths, 1,579 or 88.6% of the deceased were males. Of this total, there were 240 victims of “Transport accidents”, 31 of “Intentional self harm”, 1,202 of “Assault” and 106 of “All other external causes”. Previously there were 1,210 (83.4%) male police-reported deaths, 270 of which were due to “Transport accidents”, 43 due to “Intentional self harm”, 783 due to “Assault” and 114 due to “All other external causes”. Immediately, it is observed that the only category that increased was “Assault”.

TABLE 15l: SUMMARY OF MALE SUDDEN AND VIOLENT DEATHS OCCURRING BY CAUSE AND AGE (1-100 YEARS) FOR 2004

· Females
Of the 1,782 unique police-report deaths, 203 or 11.4% of the deceased were females. Of this total, there were 63 victims of “Transport accidents”, 9 victims of “Intentional self harm” and 131 victims of “Assault”. Previously, there were a total of 159 police-reported deaths, “Transport accidents” caused 70 deaths, “Intentional self harm” caused 9, “Assault” caused 78 and “All other external causes” caused 2 deaths. Again, the only category to increase was “Assault”.

TABLE 15m: SUMMARY OF FEMALE SUDDEN AND VIOLENT DEATHS OCCURRING BY CAUSE AND AGE (1-100 YEARS) FOR 2004

Deaths by Cause and Residence of Deceased

This is the most recently added section of the report. It presents data on the deaths registered in the current reporting year by cause of death and parish of residence of deceased. When considering facets of vital statistics, it is thought to be more beneficial to consider location of residence rather than location of occurrence of the event. In the utilisation of vital statistics in planning, the location of occurrence lends itself to offer direct information on exactly where services are needed and where preventative programs need to be implemented. Therefore, in the case of births, data on parish of residence of mother can indicate where an additional hospital or birthing facility is needed. Trends in mortality data by residence of deceased can also inform as to the degree to which the residence of specific areas are being affected and by which diseases.

The new tables presented in this section of the report present mortality data for adults (individuals 5 years and over) by cause according to ICD-10 and by parish of residence of deceased. The data is presented for all deaths registered in 2004.

Table 15n shows all adult female deaths by cause and parish of residence of deceased. Here, the distributions across each parish can be seen for each ICD-10 category for the 6,606 adult female deaths.

Table 15o shows all adult male deaths by cause and parish of residence of deceased. The distributions for these deaths are seen for the 6,857 adult male deaths.

Table 15p shows the fourteen leading causes of deaths for all adults (previously presented in Table 15d) by cause and parish of residence of deceased.

TABLE 15n: SUMMARY OF ADULT FEMALE DEATHS (5-100 YEARS) BY CAUSE AND PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF DECEASED FOR 2004

TABLE 15o: SUMMARY OF ADULT MALE DEATHS (5-100 YEARS) BY CAUSE AND PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF DECEASED FOR 2004
TABLE 15p: LEADING CAUSES OF DEATHS FOR ALL ADULTS (5-100 YEARS) BY CAUSE AND PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF DECEASED FOR 2004

Chart 6 shows a summary of the data from this table for the ten leading causes of deaths for adults and their distribution across each parish. It can be observed that “Cerebrovascular disease” and “Diabetes mellitus” both make significant contributions to each parish’s death total. Additionally, for Kingston and St. James, “Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease” also contributed a significant number of deaths toward those parishes’ top ten totals.

CHART 6: TEN LEADING CAUSES OF DEATHS SHOWING PERCENTAGE CONTRIBUTION TO EACH PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF DECEASED FOR 2004 DEATH REGISTRATIONS

2004 Vital Statistics Report Eight-year trend 1997-2004

Over the 1997 to 2004 eight-year period, total deaths registered fluctuated between a high of 17,387 in 1999 to a low of 14,050 in the current reporting year. The highest increase was experienced in 1999 with 1,190 or 7.3% of the previous year. The highest decrease was in the year 2002 with a decline of 1,273 or 7.9%. The total decline from 1997 to 2004 was by 1,037 or 6.9%.

TABLE 1f: TOTALS FOR DEATHS REGISTERED BY PARISH FOR 1997 TO 2004

Graph 7 The individual trends for each parish are seen for the period. Kingston exhibits the highest degree of fluctuation, reaching a high of about 3,000 death registrations in 1999 and a low of around 2,000 in 2004. St. Andrew also reaches a high of around 3,000 in 1999 and reaches its low of around 2,000 in 2002 and 2004. St. Catherine also fluctuated, but to a lesser degree, its highest level of death registration also being in 1999 with about 2,200 and its least being about 1,800 in 2004.

GRAPH 7: DEATHS REGISTERED BY PARISH AND YEAR FOR 1997 TO 2004

The rest of the parishes fluctuated also and all fell under the 1,500 mark. Over the period, the largest overall increase was seen in Manchester with 321 or 30.1%. St. Andrew, however, saw the largest decrease with 523 or 19.0%.

In Chart 5, the trends in total deaths registered are shown for all parishes over the eight-year period. The same observations are seen as in Graph 7 for Kingston, St. Andrew and St. Catherine. In respect of details for the other parishes it can be seen that St. Thomas was generally constant around a little over 500 deaths. Portland fluctuated minimally around the 450 mark. St. Mary increased and then decreased through 1997 to 2004 and averaged around 650. Westmoreland showed a general trend of decline from 906 to 685. Hanover declined from 365 to 296 with an average of 330 deaths. St. James fluctuated drastically with a high of 1,464 in 2000 and a low of 1,001 in 2003 and averaged 1,233. Trelawny was generally constant with an average of 395 deaths. Clarendon fluctuated from a high of 1,193 in 2001 to a low of 974 in 1997. Manchester averaged 1,309 but also saw a significant overall increase of 321. Finally, St. Elizabeth fluctuated around a high of 873 in 2001 and a low of 679 in the current reporting year.

CHART 5: DEATHS REGISTERED BY PARISH AND YEAR OF REGISTRATION FOR 1997 TO 2004

Graph 8 shows total deaths registered in each year from 1997 to 2004. The total is seen to fluctuate over the eight-year period. It increases sharply in 1998 from 15,087 to 16,197. In the following year, it again increases significantly to 17,387. In 2000, it declines sharply to 16,338 and minimally in 2001 to 16,204. The year 2002 sees another significant decline to 14,931 while in 2003 there is no significant change when a total of 14,939 were registered. In the current year, there is another significant decline to 14,050.

PH 8: TOTAL DEATHS REGISTERED FOR YEARS 1997-2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Sudden and Violent Deaths

Sudden and violent deaths as the name suggests, are those in which the person dies suddenly or unexpectedly, such as in the case described immediately above and also includes accidental deaths. Violent deaths are those occurring under criminal circumstances. All such deaths deemed to be “sudden” or “violent” fall under the jurisdiction of the law and require that a pathologist or equivalent officer perform a post mortem examination. From this examination, the Post Mortem Examination Report is completed and issued. Usually from this Post Mortem Examination Report, a Certificate of Coroner or Form D is completed, authorised by the Coroner’s Court. In cases where culpability of a crime must be investigated, then a Form D will be issued in the interim showing the cause of death. However, after a Coroner’s Inquest is complete then a Coroner’s Certificate or Form E is issued. The category “Uncertified Death” speaks to those death registrations, most of which are incomplete, that have no associated document as previously described. Due to the delay in obtaining the Post Mortem Examination Report, Form D or Form E in some “sudden and violent death” cases, the process known as “incomplete death registration” has evolved in response to this problem. Upon receipt of the proper supporting document for the death from the prescribed authorities, the registration is then completed and the event recorded in the vital statistics database.

For 2004 death registrations, 13,276 (94.5%) were certified by Medical Certificate of Cause of Death, 637 (4.5%) by Form D, 125 (0.9%) were uncertified, 11 (0.1%) by Form E and only one was certified by Post Mortem Report.

TABLE 11: DEATH REGISTERED IN EACH PARISH BY TYPE OF CERTIFICATION FOR 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Marriages

In 2004, there were 21,670 marriages registered in Jamaica. This is a decline of 806 or 3.6% from the previous year’s total of 22,476. In 2002, a total of 23,070 marriages were registered. This indicates a decline of 594 or 2.6% from 2002 to 2003 and an overall decline of 1,400 or 6.1% from 2002 to 2004.

The Western region again led the regional contribution to the marriage total with 9,005 or 41.6%. Next came the North Eastern, South Eastern and Southern regions with 5,536 (25.5%), 5,187 (23.9%) and 1,942 (9.0%) respectively. In 2003, the regional trend was the same with the contributions for Western being 9,375 (41.7%), North Eastern with 5,779 (25.7%), South Eastern with 5,361 (23.9%) and Southern with 1,961 (8.7%).

TABLE 2: ESTIMATED POPULATION OF PARISHES-LIVE BIRTHS, DEATHS, MARRIAGES, STILL BIRTHS AND CORRESPONDING RATES FOR 2004

The three leading parishes for marriages in 2004 were St. James, St. Ann and Westmoreland with 4,075 (18.8%), 3,969 (18.3%) and 2,719 (12.5%) respectively. The parish with the least marriages was Portland with 258 or 1.2%. In the previous year, there were slight differences with the leading parishes being St. Ann with 4,349 (19.3%), St. James with 4,229 (18.8%) and Westmoreland with 2,833 (12.6%). Portland was in last position with 284 marriages or 1.3%.

Examination of the marriages by quarter reveals that the second quarter led with 5,961 (27.5%), followed by the third quarter with 5,330 (24.6%), then the fourth quarter with 5,233 (24.1%) and finally the first quarter with 5,146 (23.8%). In the previous year, this was the same trend with the respective contributions: second quarter – 6,178 (27.5%), third quarter – 5,883 (26.2%), fourth quarter – 5,739 (25.5%) and first quarter with 4,676 (20.8%).

TABLE16b:MARRIAGES BY PARISH, BY QUARTER OF OCCURRENCE, 2004, AND PERCENTAGES OF TOTAL

2004 Vital Statistics Report Hotel Marriages

Since the early days of the tourism industry of Jamaica in the nineteen fifties until present day, tourism continues to be an important part of the country’s economy. As a result of sustained marketing of Jamaica’s product and even in the face of social instability due to the country’s increasing crime problem, tourists continue to visit the island in significant numbers.

Many of these visitors choose to exchange nuptials during their stay in Jamaica. In this report, all marriages which take place in hotels, villas, lodge, cottage or any other related commercial residential property are deemed to be “Hotel” marriages. By virtue of this definition, locals who get married in hotels are also included in these statistics. It is believed, however, that the percentage of locals in this group is very small.

Hotel marriages totalled 9,566 or 44.1% in 2004 while the remaining marriages totalled 12,104 or 55.9%. This was a minimal deviation from the previous year’s totals and percentages of 10,037 or 44.7% for Hotel marriages and 12,439 or 55.3%.

The parishes with the highest percentages of hotel marriages were Westmoreland, St. Ann, Hanover and St. James with 1,998 (73.5%), 2,711 (68.3%), 1,102 (65.8%) and 2,550 (62.6%) of those parishes totals respectively. In 2003, these four parishes led, however, in different positions: St. Ann with 3,128 (71.9%), Hanover with 1,204 (71.6%), Westmoreland with 1,997 (70.5%) and St. James with 2,575 (60.9%).

TABLE 16a: TOTAL MARRIAGES BY PARISH FOR HOTELS AND OTHERS AND PERCENTAGES OF TOTAL FOR 2004

Chart 7 shows the six leading parishes for hotel marriages in 2004. The parishes in descending order of number of hotel marriages are: St. Ann with 2,711, St. James with 2,550, Westmoreland with 1,998, Hanover with 1,102, St. Mary with 739 and Trelawny with 210.

In the previous year, the respective values were: St. Ann with 3,128, St. James with 2,575, Westmoreland with 1,997, Hanover with 1,204, St. Mary with 592 and Trelawny with 279.

CHART 7: HOTEL MARRIAGES 2004 OCCURRENCES IN SIX LEADING HOTEL MARRIAGE PARISHES

2004 Vital Statistics Report Birth Outcomes

The data presented in Table 8 mainly represents a quarterly summary of the data previously presented in Tables 4 and 5: gender, marital status and institutional births. Additionally, quarterly live birth outcome data is presented. The quarter with the largest number of live birth occurrences for 2004 was the October to December quarter with 12,634, followed by the July to September, January to March and April to June quarters with 10,715, 10,115 and 8,984 respectively.

In respect of live birth outcomes, there were 41,648 singletons, 810 sets of twins and 4 triplets. This is comparable to the previous year’s totals of 42,511 singletons, 439 twins and 6 triplets.

(Table 8)

In respect of the parish of occurrence of the live births by outcome, it can be observed that the triplets occurred in Kingston and St. Catherine, two in each parish. For twins, the parishes with the highest occurrence were Kingston and Manchester with 81 and 59 respectively. Portland had the least with only one set of twins.

(Table 8a)

TABLE 8: QUARTERLY STATISTICS OF LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 SHOWING GENDER, MARITAL STATUS AND LIVE BIRTH OUTCOMES

TABLE 8a: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURRING IN 2004 BY PARISH OF OCCURRENCE AND LIVE BIRTH OUTCOME

2004 Vital Statistics Report Institutional Deliveries

It is well established that giving birth in a medical institution under the care and supervision of trained health-care providers promotes survival of infants and reduces the risk of maternal mortality. As a result, more mothers are now opting to give birth in institutions. Since 1995, our publications have been attested to this fact, births outside of institutions has moved from a high of 15.1% in 1995 to a record low of 1.9% in 2004.

As shown in table 5, of the 42,448 live births occurring, 39,451 or 92.9% occurred in public institutions, 2,187 or 5.2% in private institution. Together institutional deliveries totalled 41,638 or 98.1% and out of institutions 810 or 1.9%. When compared to 2003, institutional deliveries have increased by 2.5%.

The number of qualified attendants, which include medical doctors, nurses or midwives, present at deliveries has been on the increase. The year 2004, saw doctors accounting for 8,679 or 20.4%; registered midwives 33,239 or 78.3%; together both groups attended to 98.7% of live births unqualified attendants 489 or 1.2% Births; and persons of unknown qualification 41 or 0.01%.

Of key interest, doctors at delivery increased by 2.3% over 2003. Since our 1995 publication Doctors attending deliveries have been increasing by a maximum of 2% creating a shift in some of the live births deliveries to doctors. As a result there has been a total increase of 10.8% in doctors attending deliveries from 9.6% in 1995 to 20.4% in 2004.

(Table 5)
TABLE 5: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN INSTITUTIONS AND OUT OF INSTITUTION AND ATTENDANT AT DELIVERY FOR 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Mother’s Residence

As has been characteristic of previous years, the level of coincidence of parish of occurrence of live birth and parish of residence of mother was high for most parishes. St. Catherine, St. Thomas,

As has been characteristic of previous years, the level of coincidence of parish of occurrence of live birth and parish of residence of mother was high for most parishes. St. Catherine, St. Thomas, Portland, Hanover, Trelawny, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth all had over 95% coincidence. The other seven parishes had coincidences of below 88% with Kingston and Manchester having the lowest at 20.4% and 54.2% respectively.

There were seven mothers whose residence was outside of Jamaica at the time of the birth of their child. Two resided in Canada, two in Turks and Caicos, and one each in Antigua, the United States of America and Dominica.

Turning to the absolute values for the individual parishes, the leading parish was again St. Andrew with 8,251 of those live births to mother residing in that parish. St. Catherine and Clarendon followed with 6,974 and 4,064 respectively.

(Table 7 and 7a)

From Table B, interesting observations can be made. Though St. Andrew, St. Catherine and Clarendon have the highest absolute values for live births to mother residence, the values for live births per 1,000 of each parish’s population relate another trend. Here the leading parishes are all from the Western Region: Hanover, Westmoreland and St. James with 19.3, 17.9 and 17.7 respectively.

(Table B)

TABLE B: LIVE BIRTHS HSOWING PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER AND CORRESPONDING RATES PER POPULATION FOR 2004

TABLE 7: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH OF OCCURRENCE AND PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER

TABLE 7a: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH OF OCCURRENCE AND PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER BY PERCENTAGES

2004 Vital Statistics Report Mother’s Residence

As has been characteristic of previous years, the level of coincidence of parish of occurrence of live birth and parish of residence of mother was high for most parishes. St. Catherine, St. Thomas, Portland, Hanover, Trelawny, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth all had over 95% coincidence. The other seven parishes had coincidences of below 88% with Kingston and Manchester having the lowest at 20.4% and 54.2% respectively.

(Table 7 and 7a)

(Table B)

TABLE B: LIVE BIRTHS HSOWING PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER AND CORRESPONDING RATES PER POPULATION FOR 2004

TABLE 7: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH OF OCCURRENCE AND PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER

TABLE 7a: LIVE BIRTHS OCCURING IN 2004 BY PARISH OF OCCURRENCE AND PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF MOTHER BY PERCENTAGES

2004 Vital Statistics Report Parish of Residence

In 2004 eight parishes had over 90% of their deaths being registered in the same parish as the parish of residence of the deceased. These were St. Catherine, St. Thomas, Portland, Westmoreland, Hanover, Trelawny, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth. In the previous reporting year, only one additional parish, St. Mary, had over 90% coincidence. The parish of Kingston deviated drastically from this trend as it had only 33.2% coincidence and most of its death registrations were for persons who resided in St. Andrew at 41.1% of all its registrations.

TABLE 13: TOTAL DEATHS REGISTERED IN 2004 CLASSIFIED BY PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF DECEASED

For 2004 death occurrences, the trend was the same for the eight parishes mentioned in the previous paragraph. For Kingston, it had 32.9% coincidence and 41.4% of its deaths were persons who resided in St. Andrew.

13a: TOTAL DEATHS OCCURRING IN 2004 CLASSIFIED BY PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF DECEASED

2004 Vital Statistics Report Solemnisation

In Jamaica, a marriage must be legalised or “solemnised” by way of a document known as the licence or authority. Currently there are five types used: Marriage Officer’s Certificate, Special Marriage Licence, Minister’s Licence, Civil Registrar’s Certificate and Inarticulo Mortis. The particulars of these licences are explained in the Appendices.

In 2004, there were 7,793 (36.0%) marriages solemnised using the Marriage Officer’s Certificate, 1,032 (4.7%) using Special Marriage Licence, 12,435 (57.4%) using Minister’s Licence, 410 (1.9%) using Civil Registrar Certificate and there were no Inarticulo Mortis marriages. In the previous year, there were 7,878 (35.0%) marriages using Marriage Officer’s Certificate, 921 (4.1%) using Special Marriage Licence, 13,206 (58.8%) using Minister’s Licence, 471 (2.1%) using Civil Registrar’s Certificate and there were also no Inarticulo Mortis marriages. Due to the convenience of the Minister’s Licence, it is usually the licence of choice for tourist marriages, making its contribution relatively high when compared to the other types of licences.

TABLE 16: MARRIAGES OCCURRING IN EACH PARISH BY QUARTER AND AUTHORITY UNDER WHICH MARRIAGES WERE SOLEMNISED FOR 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Age at Marriage

As with the previous year’s trend, the age groups with the highest number of grooms in 2004 were the 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39 with 5,149 (23.8%), 4,975 (23.0%) and 3,457 (16.0%) respectively. In 2003, these same groups had respective totals of 5,278 (23.5%), 5,264 (23.4%) and 3,631 (16.2%). In 2002, they had 5,621 (24.4%), 5,564 (24.1%) and 3,624 (15.7%) respectively.

In respect of brides married in 2004, the leading age groups were the 25-29, 30-34 and 20-24 with respective values of 5,782 (26.7%), 4,593 (21.2%) and 3,651 (16.8%). The same age groups led in the same order for 2003 with 5,978 (26.6%), 4,771 (21.2%) and 3,873 (17.2%). In the previous year these age groups had totals of 6,266 (27.2%), 5,135 (22.3%) and 3,951 (17.1%) respectively.
TABLE 18: NUMBER OF MALES (BRIDEGROOMS) AND FEMALES (BRIDES) MARRIED BY AGE GROUPS AND SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL MARRIAGES FOR 2004

Graph 9 shows age group distribution for grooms and brides for marriages performed in 2004. From the distribution it can be observed that the modal group for both groom and brides is the 25-29 group. As was seen in the previous year, the distribution of brides tends to the left of the grooms’ distribution indicating that overall the group of brides were younger than the set of grooms that were married in 2004.

GRAPH 9: AGE GROUP DISTRIBUTIONS FOR GROOMS AND BRIDES FOR 2004

For the 2004 marriage data by joint age of groom and bride, the largest age group cohort is that of the groom and the bride being 25-29 years with 2,487 (11.5%) such marriages. The next largest one was for the groom being 30-34 and the bride being 25-29 with 1,772 (8.2%) marriages. In the third position was the cohort with the groom and bride being 30-34 years with 1,746 (8.1%).

In the previous year, there was a similar situation with the leading cohort being that of the groom and bride being 25-29 years with 2,513 (11.2%) such marriages. Next was the group with the groom and bride being 30-34 with 1,886 (8.4%). In third was the cohort with the groom being 30-34 and the bride being 25-29 years with 1,854 (8.2%) marriages.

TABLE 18a: MARRIAGES BY JOINT AGE OF GROOM AND AGE OF BRIDE FOR 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Joint Parishes of Residence

For the 2004 marriage data by joint parish of residence of groom and bride, the data is presented in Table 19. It shows that for most parishes the level of coincidence between parish of residence of both groom and bride was above 90% for all parishes except Kingston and Clarendon where it was 79.7% and 89.9% respectively.

St. James had the highest number of grooms and brides residing in that parish both separately and jointly, with totals of 3,955 brides from that parish, a total of 3,940 grooms from that parish and a total of 3,888 couples who were both from that parish.

TABLE 19: MARRIAGES BY JOINT PARISH OF RESIDENCE OF BRIDEGROOMS AND BRIDE FOR 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Month of Occurrence

The three most popular months for marriages in 2004 were July with 2,318 (10.7%), June with 2,275 (10.5%) and December with 2,216 (10.2%). Conversely, September had the least marriages with 899 or 4.1%.

In 2003, the top three months were December, August and June with 2,632 (11.7%), 2,473 (11.0%) and 2,113 (9.4%) and the least popular month was January with 1,271 or 5.7%.

For 2002, December, June and July led with 2,691 (11.7%), 2,312 (10.0%) and 2,198 (9.5%) while September had the lowest number at 1,442 (6.3%).

TABLE 17: TOTAL NUMBER OF MARRIAGES REGISTERED DURING 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report Denomination

In respect of denomination of the marriages occurring in 2004, the single leading categories overall were Church of God (2,521), Baptist (2,315) and United Church (2,310). Note that the “Other” category, which comprises all other denominations not specified in Table 20, led with 7,915 marriages.

CHART 8: 2004 MARRIAGES SHOWING DENOMINATIONS

Observation of parish trends reveals that St. Thomas, St. Mary, St. Elizabeth and Trelawny each had its single leading denomination being Baptist. In addition to being the overall leader, the Church of God group led in St. Ann, Clarendon and Westmoreland. In St. Andrew and St. Catherine the leading group was the Seventh Day Adventist while in Manchester and Hanover, the United Church led the way. Kingston and Portland had their leading denomination as Apostolic and finally St. James was the sole parish that had it highest number of marriages from the Assemblies of God group. Of note also is that there were 768 marriages conducted by Civil Registrars.

TABLE 20: MARRIAGES OCCURRING BY PARISH OF OCCURRENCE AND LEADING DENOMINATIONS AND CIVIL REGISTRARS FOR 2004
Concerning marriages by denomination and month of occurrence, most groups had their busiest months in July and August. Exceptions to this were Assemblies of God with the highest number of marriages in June, United Church in May while Methodist and Seventh Day Adventist had their highest in December.
TABLE 20a: MARRIAGES OCCURING BY MONTH OF OCCURRENCE AND LEADING DENOMINATIONS AND CIVIL REGISTRARS FOR 2004
Seven of the denomination groups had their highest number of marriages being solemnised by Minister’s Licence. The Methodist, Moravian, Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist groups, on the other hand, had the majority of their marriages performed on Marriage Officer’s Certificate. The Salvation Army was the sole group having most marriages by Special Licence. Civil Registrars, of course, had mostly Civil Registrar Certificate solemnised marriages.
Seven of the denomination groups had their highest number of marriages being solemnised by Minister’s Licence. The Methodist, Moravian, Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist groups, on the other hand, had the majority of their marriages performed on Marriage Officer’s Certificate. The Salvation Army was the sole group having most marriages by Special Licence. Civil Registrars, of course, had mostly Civil Registrar Certificate solemnised marriages.
TABLE 20b: MARRIAGES OCCURRING BY AUTHORITY AND LEADING DENOMINATIONS AND CIVIL REGISTRARS FOR 2004
Seven of the denomination groups had their highest number of marriages being solemnised by Minister’s Licence. The Methodist, Moravian, Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist groups, on the other hand, had the majority of their marriages performed on Marriage Officer’s Certificate. The Salvation Army was the sole group having most marriages by Special Licence. Civil Registrars, of course, had mostly Civil Registrar Certificate solemnised marriages. Seven of the denomination groups had their highest number of marriages being solemnised by Minister’s Licence. The Methodist, Moravian, Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist groups, on the other hand, had the majority of their marriages performed on Marriage Officer’s Certificate. The Salvation Army was the sole group having most marriages by Special Licence. Civil Registrars, of course, had mostly Civil Registrar Certificate solemnised marriages.

2004 Vital Statistics Report DIVORCES

The Registrar General’s Department is not a repository for documents utilised in granting divorces absolute. This data is sourced from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) which collates divorce data from the records of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the entity which actually processes divorces absolute.

In 2004 a total of 1,739 divorces absolute were granted. This is an increase of 139 or 8.7% over the previous year’s total of 1,600. In 2003, divorces absolute had declined by 145 or 8.3% from 2002’s total of 1,745.

TABLE 1g: DIVORCES ABSOLUTE GRANTED-1998-2004

From 1998 to 2004, the total number of divorces absolute has fluctuated. Overall, however, there is a trend of increase as shown in the graph. In 1998, the total stood at 1,420 then there was a decline in the following year to 1,131. In 2000, there was another minimal decrease to 1,106 and then in 2001, divorces absolute granted rose sharply to 1,691, an increase of almost 53%. In 2002, the total granted was 1,745, the highest recorded to date for any one year. The year 2003 registered a slight decline to 1,600 and then another increase occurred in 2004, with the total reaching 1,739.

GRAPH 10: CRUDE DIVORCE RATE FOR DIVORCE ABSOLUTE GRANTED -1998 TO 2004

Age of Partner Being Sued at Divorce

For divorces absolute granted by age and sex, note that the data is given in respect of the partner against whom the divorce action is being taken. In 2004, this described 901 males and 838 females, which is 51.8% and 48.2% respectively. In the previous year, there were 803 males and 797 females or 50.2% and 49.8% males and females respectively. Additionally, the 40-49 and 30-39 age groups were the largest for males and females being divorced with 328 and 316 respectively.

TABLE 21: DIVORCES ABSOLUTE CLASSIFIED BY AGE AND BY SEX FOR 2004

Joint Ages of Partners at Divorce

The next table deals with divorces absolute by joint ages of partners at divorce. This table shows that the largest age group for female partner was the 35-39 group with 340. For age of male partner, the largest age group was the 50-59 group with 342. In respect of the joint ages, the largest cohort was that for both the male and female partners being 50-59 with 148 such couples.

TABLE 22: DIVORCES ABSOLUTE CLASSIFIED BY JOINT AGES OF PARTNERS AT DIVORCE FOR 2004

Age at Marriage and Duration of Marriage

When age of female partner at marriage and duration of marriage are taken into account, it is seen that the largest number came from the under 25 age group with 753 of the females being from that group. For the remaining age groups in ascending order: 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-49 and 50 and over, the magnitude of the totals decreased accordingly with 479, 267, 118, 93 and 29 respectively.

TABLE 23: DIVORCES ABSOLUTE CLASSIFIED BY AGE OF FEMALE PARTNER AT MARRIAGE AND DURATION OF MARRIAGE FOR 2004

In contrast, for the age of male partner and duration of marriage table, the largest group was the 25-29 age group with 598 in total. The following groups were the under 25, 30-34, 35-39, 40-49 and 50 and over with 393, 347, 189, 155 and 57 respectively.

TABLE 24: DIVORCES ABSOLUTE CLASSIFIED BY AGE OF MALE PARTNER AT MARRIAGE AND DURATION OF MARRIAGE FOR 2004

From both Tables 23 and 24, it can be seen that the modal group for duration of marriage was for 5-9 years with 537 divorces absolute being granted for this group. Following in descending order were 10-14, 15-19, 25 and over, 20-24 and under 5 years with 398, 263, 230, 192 and 119 respectively.

Mean Duration of Marriage Before Divorce – 1995 to 2004As seen in the accompanying graph, the mean duration of marriage before divorce absolute was granted for 1995 to 2004 fluctuated over the ten-year period. In 1995, the average length of the marriages which were dissolved was 14.5 years. In 1996 and 1997 there were increases to 14.7 and 15.0 years respectively. There was then a slight decrease in 1998 to 14.9 years and then a more drastic decrease in 1999 to 14.5 years. It rose minimally in the following year to 14.6 years. In 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, it followed a declining trend to 14.5, 14.3, 14.0 and 13.6 years respectively. The year with the lowest mean duration of marriages was 2004 with 13.6 years and the year with the highest was 1997 with 15.0 years.

GRAPH 11: MEAN DURATION OF MARRIAGE BEFORE DIVORCE ABSOLUTE GRANTED FOR 1995 TO 2004

Previous Marital Status

In respect of previous marital status, for males being divorced in 2004, there were 1,612 (92.7%) single, 21 (1.2%) widowed and 106 (6.1%) were divorced. For females, there were 1,636 (94.1%) single, 15 (0.9%) widowed and 88 (5.0%) divorced.

TABLE 25: DIVORCES ABSOLUTE CLASSIFIED BY PREVIOUS MARITAL STATUS AND AGE AT MARRIAGE FOR 2004

2004 Vital Statistics Report CONCLUSION

As an executive agency still in its first decade of existence, the Registrar General’s Department, with the publication of this vital statistics report, continues in its thrust to provide exceptional support to its stakeholders, both local and international. The Agency vows to continue to strive for excellence in every area of responsibility with which it has been entrusted and through which it serves Jamaica and other countries with which it relates. We are grateful for and anticipate continued partnership with all entities associated with us.