Last week, the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) welcomed partners at the Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) to discuss future collaborations.
DANE has partnered with LCDS to develop methodologies for estimating populations in data-scarce contexts and leveraging various sources of non-traditional data. LCDS welcomed DANE’s Deputy Director Leonardo Trujillo Oyola, Research and Development coordinator Lina Maria Sanchez Cespedes, and Demographer Rafael Andres Urrego Posada.
The visit began with an LCDS seminar where Lina outlined DANE’s partnership and Data Sharing Agreement with Oxford and Southampton:
‘This is an excellent opportunity to advance in the joint development of methods to estimate populations in difficult to reach regions in Colombia, as well as to expand partnerships, innovation and research among the National Statistics Office’s.’
Past research that tackled the issue of enumerating remote places in the Amazonian region with the power of geospatial data, such as satellite imagery, and Bayesian statistics was also presented.
Édith Darin, a DPhil student at the Centre, then outlined future collaborations with DANE to estimate populations in difficult to reach regions in Colombia:
‘Future collaborations with DANE will explore administrative records to estimate populations for years between censuses, social media data to understand internal migration dynamics, and satellite imagery to predict population sizes with national coverage.’
The seminar concluded with a discussion from Rafael on methodological challenges including modelling mortality statistics from civil registration, developing a statistical picture of centenarians and LGBT people in Colombia, and producing demographic projections for ethnic minorities.
DANE’s visit to Oxford concluded with an open discussion on future collaborations with LCDS researchers. The Centre’s Douglas Leasure and Édith Darin also travelled to Southampton with Oxford’s Research Assistant Valentina Antonaccio and DANE to discuss ongoing partnerships with the University of Southampton’s Geography and Environmental Science, and WorldPop research programme.
