scotPHO introduction:
  Amenable Mortality
  Deaths
  Healthy Life Expectancy
  Key points
  Introduction
  Policy context
  Data
  Data introduction
  Scotland
  NHS boards
  Community health partnerships
  Intermediate geographies / local areas
  Deprivation quintiles
  Deprivation deciles
  Urban rural classification
UK comparisons
  International comparisons
  Key data sources
  References
  Useful links
  Migration
  Population Estimates & Forecasts
  Pregnancy & births
Text Only  |  Text Size: A |  A+ |  A++

Healthy life expectancy: UK comparisons

Comparisons including healthy life expectancy (HLE)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) regularly publishes reports and tables comparing life expectancy (LE), HLE and disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) at birth and at age 65 in the UK, Great Britain, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Note that the General Household Survey (recently changed to form the General Lifestyle module (GLF) on the ONS Continuous Population Survey) is used as the source of self-assessed health (SAH) for HLE and DFLE for Scotland and the other countries. The results presented by ONS for Scotland therefore differ slightly from those published here, and the confidence intervals are wider as the sample size is smaller than either the Scottish Household Survey or the 2001 Scotland Census.

Key ONS documents include: 

  • Health expectancies in the United Kingdom, 2004-2006 (p77 in Health Statistics Quarterly no. 40, winter 2008 PDF Button (1.75MB)). This report found that for the 3-year period 2004-06, LE at birth in Scotland was around 2 years lower than in the UK as a whole. HLE at birth was also lower in Scotland than in the UK, significantly so for males but not females. Of the four countries within the UK, Scotland had the lowest male and female LE at birth, the lowest male HLE at birth, but the second highest female HLE at birth. For each sex, Scotland had the shortest period expected to be spent in ‘not good’ health (HLE-LE) (and similarly also the highest proportion of life free from disability (DFLE/LE)).

Alongside LE at birth being lower in Scotland than the UK, LE at age 65 was also lower in Scotland (by 1 year) for both males and females. This indicates that the lower LE at birth in Scotland than the UK is not simply due to inequalities in mortality at younger ages, but at older ages too.

Comparisons of LE only

ONS produce interim life tables annually for the United Kingdom, Great Britain and constituent countries, giving statistics on period life expectancy by age and sex. Each life table is based on the population estimates, births and deaths data for a period of three consecutive years. They are known as interim life tables since fully graduated life tables are also prepared every ten years, based on data around a census year.

ONS also calculates abridged life tables for sub-national areas in the United Kingdom, using numbers of deaths and mid-year population estimates over 3-year periods.

Key ONS documents include:

LE comparisons between Scotland and the UK can also be found on the Scotland and European Health for All (HfA) Database which is described in more detail on the HLE international comparisons page.