Health and life expectancies: key points

Life expectancy (LE) is an estimate of how many years a person might be expected to live, whereas healthy life expectancy (HLE) is an estimate of how many years they might live in a 'healthy' state.

• Life expectancy at birth in Scotland had shown a general improvement since 1980, however, in recent years improvements in life expectancy have stalled and are currently below the 2012-2014 values for both males and females.
• Latest life expectancy and healthy life expectancy estimates for Scotland are for the period 2021-2023.
• Male life expectancy at birth for the period 2021-2023 is 76.8 years, on average 59.6 of these years spent in 'good health'.
• Female life expectancy at birth for the period 2021-2023 is 80.8 years, on average 60.0 of these years spent in 'good health'.
• Healthy life expectancy a birth in Scotland has also reduced in recent years for both males and females, changes in calculation methodology mean that comparison is only possible back to the period 2013-2015.
• Healthy life expectancy at birth estimates for both males and females have decreased every year since 2014-2016 to 2021-2023.
• Both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy are consistently higher for females compared to males.
• Over the last 10 years female LE at birth has consistently been around 4 years higher than for males.  HLE at birth has also been higher in females compared to males, although this gap has narrowed and 2019-2021 the difference is less than half a year. 
• Females in Scotland live more years in 'poor health' compared to males.   
• Those living in deprived areas have lower LE and HLE when compared to those living in the least deprived areas.
• LE and HLE are lower in Scotland than in the UK as a whole, for both males and females.

ScotPHO welcomes feedback from website users on the information included in this update. Please e-mail us at scotpho@nhs.netThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  with any comments on how the data are used and presented and how this could be improved.