Latest Update: 07 March 2023

Female healthy life expectancy has been decreasing since 2014-2016. Male healthy life expectancy has been decreasing since 2015-2017. Find out more about this indicator.

Healthy life expectancy is now the lowest is has been for both  males and females throughout the timeseries covered by the NPF.

In 2019-21, healthy life expectancy was 60.4 years for males and 61.1 years for females, compared with 60.9 for males and 61.8 for females in 2018-20.

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. Males spend 78.9% of their life in good health while females spend 75.6% of their lives in good health.

The local authority with the lowest male HLE estimate was North Lanarkshire (54.3 years) and for female estimates North Ayrshire (52.1 years).

Male HLE was highest in Orkney Islands (71.7 years) and Female HLE was also highest in Orkney Islands (76.4 years).

Healthy life expectancy was analysed at birth and at 65 years.

The gap in healthy life expectancy at birth between the most and least deprived areas was 26.0 years for males and 24.9 years for females. (based on SIMD deciles).

Healthy Life expectancy is higher in more rural areas. The difference between the most urban and most rural areas for males is 5.5 years and for females is 5.6 years.