Healthier life expectancy continues to fall in Scotland for men and women
People in the most deprived communities are spending more than one third of their lives in poor health, according to new figures released by National Records of Scotland.
In 2019-2021 Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) at birth for females was 61.1 years and for males was 60.4 years.
It has fallen for both in recent years.
HLE for females was almost 25 years lower for the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived.
The difference was even greater for males at 26 years.
Maria, Kaye-Bardgett, NRS statistician said: “It’s important to recognise the difference between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy but also how they impact on each other.
“These figures show that people living in the most deprived communities are more likely to report their health poor – so they have a shorter healthy life expectancy.
“We already know from life expectancy figures that people in the most deprived communities die at younger ages.
"Using both sets of figures we can say that males and females in the most deprived communities spend more than a third of their lives in poor health. In comparison people in the least deprived areas can expect to live around 15 per cent of their lives in poor health and will enjoy longer lives.”
HLE has been higher for females than for males since the start of the time series for this data.
However the gap between males and females has become smaller over time.
The report, Healthy Life Expectancy 2019-2021, is available here on the NRS website alongside data tables
