To ap­proach life with any form of ac­count­abil­i­ty, on­ly a struc­tured method of de­sign can be pre­dictable. That is to say with the in­clu­sion of tech­nol­o­gy a more aca­d­e­m­ic and ad­vanced in­sis­tence of da­ta col­lec­tion world­wide would sure­ly be able to place and keep track of where and how to give a fair in­di­ca­tion and as­sess­ment of its phys­i­cal and nu­mer­i­cal po­si­tion.

Hav­ing said or men­tioned the above, we in Trinidad and To­ba­go must be high in ap­ti­tude to say how much el­der­ly and dis­abled folks we have, where they are lo­cat­ed, what race, and to a large ex­tent what are their ages and type of dis­abil­i­ty.

Da­ta has and will al­ways be a sig­nif­i­cant as­pect of life. If prop­er da­ta is col­lect­ed then knowl­edge or in­for­ma­tion of the sta­tis­tics re­quired will come forth with some form of ac­cu­ra­cy. Is it fea­si­ble to as­sume that we in T&T know what is the cor­rect per­cent­age of our el­der­ly and dis­abled pop­u­la­tion? Based on the Unit­ed Na­tion’s as­sess­ment,15% of our so­ci­ety is el­der­ly and dis­abled. Now how ac­cu­rate is that fig­ure? On­ly an in depth sur­vey can pro­duce such in­for­ma­tion. Is it safe to say we in T&T have been col­lect­ing in­for­ma­tion to al­low us to make in­formed de­ci­sions? If not, what is the next step.

Sta­tis­tics and sta­tis­ti­cal com­mu­ni­ties such as the el­der­ly and dis­abled have a key role to play in our un­der­stand­ing of the Covid 19 pan­dem­ic. If we could source in­for­ma­tion from ar­eas such as the CSO, Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, hos­pi­tals, homes, Health Cen­ters, the ODPM and any oth­er sta­tis­ti­cal body then with the um­brel­la con­cept, col­lect­ed da­ta would fall un­der one body.

It is said that health da­ta is be­com­ing more so­phis­ti­cat­ed, of­fer­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties not just for ob­ser­va­tion­al work but al­so the pos­si­bil­i­ty of us­ing it to run prag­mat­ic tri­als in rou­tine clin­i­cal prac­tice, ob­vi­at­ing the need for spe­cial­ist da­ta col­lec­tion.

With the bod­ies men­tioned above, the use of da­ta for the el­der­ly and dis­abled quick­ly leads to the ques­tion of pri­va­cy and who should have ac­cess to da­ta for use be­yond their pri­va­cy pur­pos­es. There is of­ten an im­plic­it as­sump­tion that da­ta is owned by the in­di­vid­ual but da­ta is in fact owned by more than one per­son.

COVID- 19 has def­i­nite­ly shown that with the in­clu­sion of ef­fi­cient da­ta col­lec­tion, el­der­ly and dis­abled folks will be in a much bet­ter po­si­tion as far as their stats are con­cerned. It is long over­due as a mat­ter of fact. Da­ta col­lect­ing is at the heart of un­der­stand­ing and de­ci­sion mak­ing. So­ci­ety is now bond­ed to sta­tis­tics so that us­ing ev­i­dence to help the pub­lic make in­formed de­ci­sions in every­day life will be known as a nec­es­sary en­ti­ty.

Da­ta will most cer­tain­ly place our el­der­ly and dis­abled in a po­si­tion of in­de­pen­dence as sta­tis­tics of a con­crete na­ture have al­ways been re­quired for these folks. If a se­ri­ous dri­ve is put for­ward to ac­count for our el­der­ly and dis­abled then and on­ly then can a true pic­ture of what per­cent­age of our pop­u­la­tion is el­der­ly and dis­abled be made avail­able.

COVID- 19 sure­ly pro­voked the im­por­tance of da­ta de­spite the neg­a­tiv­i­ty. To as­cer­tain whether we in T&T have a fair es­ti­mate of how well we have done in terms of ac­count­abil­i­ty per­tain­ing to our el­der­ly and dis­abled folks is a ques­tion yet to be an­swered.

De­spair some­times floats dur­ing times of cri­sis and quite of­ten the el­der­ly and dis­abled are slow­ly ac­count­ed for but with the in­no­va­tion of de­tailed sta­tis­tics, da­ta will present a hope­ful fu­ture leav­ing lit­tle doubt in the minds of those in charge. This pan­dem­ic has sure­ly placed the world, far more our twin is­lands, in a po­si­tion of ef­fi­cient abil­i­ty to think when a cri­sis oc­curs.

The time has come for our el­der­ly and dis­abled to be on the da­ta analy­sis plat­form so they can be known and reached. With the de­vel­op­ment of ad­vance tech­nol­o­gy, da­ta has spun the world in­to an avalanche of in­for­ma­tion caus­ing fin­ger­tip re­quire­ments of his­to­ry to be made avail­able.

Da­ta is one sure way the el­der­ly and dis­abled can be kept abreast of tech­nol­o­gy so that they can be as­sessed and and found at a mo­ment’s no­tice. How pow­er­ful it will be­come when these folks can breathe a sigh of re­lief know­ing they are in good hands and in­clud­ed in the in­for­ma­tion cir­cuit.

We in Trinidad and To­ba­go must now enure our goal is to flush out all the in­for­ma­tion re­quired to save and pro­tect the el­der­ly and dis­abled from be­ing in a sit­u­a­tion of per­il. Da­ta is an in­te­gral part of the suc­cess of per­sons who are el­der­ly and dis­abled. Keep up the fight and nev­er say nev­er for we are all in this to­geth­er.

It is im­per­a­tive that we all join in salut­ing the front­line work­ers. Their bless­ings will be as­sured.