Healthy life expectancy in Scotland falls, with Glasgow bottom of the table

The National Records of Scotland figures show how long people can expect to live in good health

Author: Paul KellyPublished 25th Jan 2021

Glasgow has the lowest healthy life expectancy for men in Scotland at under 55 years, according to the latest figures from National Records of Scotland.

Males in the city have a healthy life expectancy at birth of 54.6 years – while neighbouring East Dunbartonshire has the highest at 69.8 years.

For females, healthy life expectancy at birth was highest in Orkney at 75.1 years - the only region to be higher than 70 - and lowest in North Ayrshire at 56.3 years.

Overall the figure has decreased across the country, with a widening gap between the richest and poorest.

Estimates for how long both men and women can expect to live in good health fell between 2016-18 and 2017-2019.

Women's healthy life expectancy has dropped from 62.2 years to 61.9 in that timeframe and is now the lowest since records began in 2009-2011.

Since 2009-2011, it has fallen by more than a year - down from 63 years at the start of the decade.

Healthy life expectancy for men stands at 61.9 years - a decrease of almost two and a half months from the previous year, although it remains higher than the 61.1 years recorded in 2009-2011.

The measure of healthy life expectancy is monitored by the National Records of Scotland and estimates the number of years lived in “very good” or “good” general health, based on individuals' responses to the annual population survey.

The gap for those born into the poorest and most deprived circumstances grew sharply.

For men, the gap is now 25.1 years of healthy life between those in the top 10% and bottom 10% of the population, up two years compared to 2016-2018.

The gap for women is now 21.5 years, an increase of 2.4 years from the previous year's figures.

Julie Ramsay, head of vital events statistics at the National Records of Scotland, said: “Over the last decade healthy life expectancy has increased for males and decreased for females.

“However, both males and females experienced a decrease in healthy life expectancy over the latest year.

“The decrease in healthy life expectancy coincides with a stalling of growth in life expectancy in recent years and has resulted in a lower proportion of life being spent in good health, with 79.9% for males and 76.3% for females.”

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