Healthy life expectancy in Scotland

What is healthy life expectancy?

Healthy life expectancy (HLE) is the estimated number of years people can, on average, expect to live in 'good health'. The difference between healthy and total life expectancy (LE) indicates the length of time people can expect to spend in 'poor health'.

Why is it useful?

HLE provides a single summary measure of a population's health, which takes account of the population's health status whilst alive and the death rate at different ages. HLE measures can be used to look at health trends, to compare the health of different populations or population sub-groups, and to assist resource allocation, planning of health and other services, and evaluation of interventions.

Estimates of HLE for Scotland

The 2004 Healthy life expectancy in Scotland(324Kb) report and Executive summary(92Kb) provided the first published estimates of male and female HLE for the Scottish population. They included estimates by NHS board and local authority area and deprivation quintile. A journal paper based on this work was published in 2006: Measuring inequalities in health: the case for healthy life expectancy.

In June 2008, the ISD ScotPHO team published LE and HLE estimates for Scotland and its NHS board and community health partnership areas, as indicators in the Scottish health and wellbeing profiles.  

A more detailed section on life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, including data by deprivation level and rurality, will be added to the ScotPHO website on 16 December 2008.

It should be noted that whilst ScotPHO publishes Scotland's official HLE estimates, alongside the corresponding LE estimates for the same time-periods and geographies for comparison, the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) publish the official estimates of LE for Scotland and smaller areas within it.