Chief Statistician at the Department of Commerce, Meleisea Vai Filiga, says one of the implications of the mid year populations estimates for American Samoa for 2017 is that our people are very sick.
A staggering stats in the data released Friday by DOC is the number of deaths per year.
According to the mid population estimates there were an average of 280 deaths a year, or 23 deaths a month, or 5 deaths a week.
Meleisea says that’s a very high figure and there should be some attention given to the reason why,
He suspects that the territory’s high rate of non communicable diseases is a contributing factor.
The population estimates also indicates a continuing drop in the number of births per year.
The number of babies born dropped from 1,800 a year ten years ago to just over 1,000 last year.
Meleisea commented that the overall health of women may be affecting their ability to give birth.
Another factor is that women are putting education and careers first.
Only 100 people were added to American Samoa’s population between July 2016 and June 2017.
The number of people in the territory as of June, 2017 is estimated at 60,300.
The Chief Statistician said data collection on arrivals and departures via immigration forms handed to travelers need to be improved to measure net migration.
He says DOC is working with Immigration on upgrading the immigrations forms to capture accurate information.
Meleisea laments there’s no way of knowing if returning residents who arrive as Visiting Friends and Relatives remained here or left the island again.
Another interesting statistic is that 1,000 people who came here as visitors, departed and then returned.
Meleisea suspects this high number includes foreigners who are here on visitor permits, then have to leave for a day or two and return to fulfill immigration requirements.
