Healthy Life Expectancy

Healthy Life Expectancy – Scotland

The amount of time people spend in good health (referred to as Health Life Expectancy (HLE)) has been decreasing. Healthy life expectancy is the average number of years that an individual is expected to live in a state of self-assessed good or very good health, based on current mortality rates and prevalence of good or very good health. In Scotland this has fallen over the last decade.

Information on the Healthy Life Expectancy in Scotland was recently published by NRS (Healthy Life Expectancy, 2021-2023 – National Records of Scotland (NRS)).  As shown in Figure 38 below (taken from the aforementioned publication) as age increases, LE and HLE both decrease. The difference in the proportion of life in good health between males and females narrows as age increases.

Figure 38 – HLE and LE trends at all ages in Scotland (2021-23). Click on the image to make it bigger.

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Healthy Life Expectancy – Grampian & Council Areas

For the period 2021-23, males are expected to live 61.6 years of their lifetime in good health (Figure 39). This compares with 62.3 years in females, which is slightly higher. Whilst these figures compare favourably with the rest of Scotland (59.6 years and 60.0 years, respectively) they represent a decline compared to the period 2013-15 (Figure 40) which has implications for local service demand and planning.

Healthy life expectancy in Grampian has declined by 3.3 years for males and 3.9 years for females between 2013-15 and 2021-23. This decline is most dramatic in Aberdeen City with females living 7.5 fewer years in good health (58.1 years compared to 65.7 years, Figure 41) and males 5.8 years fewer (58.0 years compared to 63.8 years, Figure 42).

This means that male healthy life expectancy in Aberdeen is now 1.6 years lower than the Scottish average. In 2013-15, male HLE in Aberdeen City was 1.9 years higher than the average for Scotland. 

Figure 39 – Male HLE in Grampian, Scotland and local areas. Click on the image to make it bigger.

Figure 40 – Female HLE in Grampian, Scotland and local areas. Click on the image to make it bigger.

Figure 41 – Change in HLE in Grampian, Scotland and local areas. Click on the image to make it bigger.

The length of time an individual spends in good health is an important measure of their quality of life. This is different to their lifespan which is simply the number of years they live irrespective of their quality of life.

The proportion of life females spend in good health dropped by over nine percentage points in Aberdeen City between 2013-15 and 2021-23 (Figure 42). This resulted in the proportion going from 3.4 percentage points above the Scottish average to 2.4 percentage points below. Smaller declines of 2-3 percentage points were recorded in Aberdeenshire and Moray.

For males, the percentage of life spent in good health dropped by 8 percentage points in Aberdeen City, between 2013-15 and 2021-23 resulting in the healthy proportion going from three percentage points above the Scotland wide figure to 1.8 percentage points below (Figure 43). In Aberdeenshire and Moray 1-2 percentage point decreases were observed.

Figure 42 – Proportion of life spent in good or bad health for Females. Click on the image to make it bigger.

Fig 43 – Proportion of life spent in good or bad health for Males. Click on the image to make it bigger.

What does the stall in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy mean for the Grampian population? 

The stall in life expectancy together with a decrease in health life expectancy means that more people are living longer lives with a larger proportion being in poor health. This results in a higher burden of disease and disability leading to increased dependency and care needs across our health and social care services. These changes highlight the need to focus on what can be done to improve the quality of life, and not just length of life. 

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