In 1989 Sistemas Integrales helped design and implement a Survey of Living Conditions (SLC) in Jamaica.

Since this 1989 inception, the Jamaican government has conducted the survey annually, with collected data used to monitor poverty trends and measure the impact of national social development programs.

In recent years, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), which also conducts regular labor force and household expenditure surveys, became concerned by mounting unit nonresponse in their surveys. For example, in 2010 nonresponse rates in the capital city reached nearly 50%.

In 2013 STATIN requested that Sistemas Integrales diagnose the problem and give its recommendations for addressing it. Upon analysis, it became clear that several factors were contributing to the increase in nonresponse: 

• Some reasons had to do with the number of years the survey had been running, which had resulted in both an obsolete sampling frame and respondent fatigue.

• There also was significant variation in nonresponse rates among the different field teams that could not be explained solely by respondent demographics such as urban/rural or rich/poor specificities.

• Finally, the shift from paper questionnaires to Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) in 2013 may also have influenced nonresponse based on insufficient time for piloting staff training for this significant transition.