What are the trends in health inequality?
Has life expectancy changed in Scotland?
After several decades of increasing life expectancy at birth, life expectancy has decreased in Scotland in recent years, according to the National Records of Scotland.
Between 2017-2019 and 2019-2021, life expectancy fell by 14.6 weeks per year for men and 7.9 weeks per year for women.
Healthy life expectancy for men and women has also decreased over the same period. (Healthy life expectancy is the average number of years a person would expect to live in good health in a particular area based on mortality rates and reported good health for that area.)
Is life expectancy the same for everyone?
However, not all groups across society are experiencing the same fall in life expectancy or healthy life expectancy. In most cases, the most deprived groups have experienced greater falls in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy that the least deprived groups.
In terms of Scotland鈥檚 biggest killers 鈥 coronary heart disease, cancer, and stroke 鈥 there were significant falls in death rates across all socio-economic groups until about 2014, but this trend has begun to slow or for some illnesses reversed.
As with life expectancy, the most deprived groups have higher death rates from these (and most other causes of death) than the least deprived.
For example, the Scottish Government reported in 2023, that for cancer of the trachea, bronchus and the lung, the reported rate was 116.8 per 100,000 people in the most deprived 10 per cent of the population, compared to just 23.6 per 100,000 in the least deprived 10 per cent of the population.