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America and Asia. With the exception of Europe, data on disability status was collected by a majority of countries in all regions.493 664. Census coverage of fertility and mortality was lowest in Europe and highest in Africa, reflecting the regional differences in availability of vital statistics from civil registration. For example, data on household deaths in the previous 12 months, a topic related to maternal mortality, were covered better in Africa (74 per cent of countries) and Asia (48 per cent) and not covered at all in Europe.493 Although some countries had already included questions on maternal mortality in their 2000 censuses, the number of countries that did so grew considerably in the 2010 census round. 665. For the 2010 World Census Programme, the Statistics Division reported that only 7 of the 193 States Members of the United Nations either would not conduct a census, or no information was available with regard to their census plans (as at 1 December 2013), compared with 25 countries in the 2000 census round. According to a survey carried out by the Statistics Division (June 2013), 494 there has been increased use of alternative census methodologies and technological advances to reduce costs and improve the quality and timeliness of data. In terms of advanced technologies, the geographic information system (GIS) was the most widely used, of great benefit to cartography. The fast-growing capabilities of GIS and easier access to imagery, and Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates, have considerably improved the quality of the maps produced for census purposes. The survey results show that 75 countries (64 per cent) used GIS in their 2010 census round. This is the most used type of technology, especially in Africa, North America and Asia. Use of technologies to enable faster release of census data has also been increasing, including computer-assisted coding (49 per cent of countries), the Internet (43 per cent), optical character recognition (42 per cent), optical mark recognition (33 per cent) and other imaging and scanning methods (38 per cent). 495 666. Dissemination was the weakest point of the censuses of the 2000 round, with important implications for public policy and the integrated use of population dynamics in development planning. Census data have been disseminated by a wider variety of media, including CD-ROM/DVD, static web pages, online databases and GIS web-based mapping tools, yet many developing countries could not fully disseminate their census results to the public. The main method for the dissemination of census results continues to be paper publications (52 per cent of countries), followed by static web pages (28 per cent) and interactive databases (14 per cent). In the African region paper publications are the method used by the majority of countries (89 per cent), followed by static web pages (8 per cent). In Europe this is inverted, with static web pages (39 per cent) and interactive databases (36 per cent) the top two, followed by paper publications (22 per cent). South America has the highest percentage of countries using interactive databases (43 per cent) for census data dissemination, followed by static web pages (29 per cent) and paper publications and CD-ROMs/DVDs (both 14 per cent).495 667. Concerns have been raised that there are a declining number of census experts and demographers available to national statistical offices in developing countries to conduct and analyse their censuses, concerns that warrant further analysis. __________________ 494
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“Mid-decade assessment of the United Nations 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme”, prepared by the United States Bureau of Census (ESA/STAT/AC.277/1). Statistics Division, “Overview of national experiences for population and housing censuses of the 2010 round” (2013); and 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme, available from http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/2010_PHC/default.htm.
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