A social development advisor for youth at the SPC, Mereia Carling, says the lack of data hides the gravity of many issues facing Pacific youth.
Ms Carling says high youth unemployment rates are particularly concerning.
"What we can see is that we are vastly underestimating the situation of youth unemployment in the region. So we really need to get the data behind those kinds of things so we can start to say actually you know the situation is not what we think it is. Its a lot worse."
