Avoid the three major pitfalls in Romanian public data
Distinguish domicile from residence, record series breaks and handle geoblocking.
Choose the right population denominator
For any per-capita calculation (doctors, crimes or income per 1,000 residents), use census resident population (around 19 million), not domicile registration from IDs (over 21.8 million).
Locality population in the 2021 census ↗Verify SIRUTA locality identifiers
Use numeric SIRUTA codes instead of locality names. Communes encompass component villages, and identical names across different counties trigger frequent join errors.
SIRUTA 2024 — locality identifiers ↗Overcome network access barriers
When governmental servers restrict foreign IP ranges or return timeouts, rely on locally archived copies or national routing, documenting the exact attempt timestamp.
data.gov.ro ↗
A pitfall to avoid
Computing per-capita indicators with domicile counts instead of resident population underestimates studied rates by 10% to 20%, due to counting millions of citizens permanently living abroad.
What you can produce
A methodological compliance note detailing the selected population baseline, SIRUTA codes and source access parameters.
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