Description:

This indicator measures the changes in the levels of healthy life expectancy in Scotland.

Source of Data:

Responsibility for production of Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) passed to National Records of Scotland (NRS) in 2018 as part of a programme of work to harmonise life expectancy and healthy life expectancy estimates across the UK.

HLE uses the same population and death inputs as life expectancy in addition to self-reported health data from the annual population survey (APS). HLE is derived by combining the estimates of life expectancy (LE) with the data on self-assessed health (from the Annual Population Survey).

Estimates of HLE are less robust than estimates of LE due to the use of survey data. As the number of people responding to the survey are fewer than in the total population, sample size for HLE is smaller than for LE and therefore the 95% confidence intervals are wider.

Healthy Life Expectancy for Scotland was previously produced by the NHS Information Services Division (ISD) and published on the Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPho) website using NRS populations estimates and death registrations. Self-assessed health data was drawn from the Scottish Household Survey and Scottish Health survey.

The HLE figures produced by ISD were based on single-year data and combined figures for males and females while NRS use data for three years split by sex, eg HLE for females in 2015-2017. Following discussions with ISD, responsibility for HLE passed to NRS in 2018. In the same year, NRS adopted a new method for HLE production developed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The new HLE figures are now comparable with HLE across the UK and also with the LE figures produced by NRS. The HLE statistics produced by NRS were recently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation who welcomed the methodological changes.

More information on this change can be found in the most recent Healthy Life Expectancy publication and methodology paper.

Definitions:

Life Expectancy: The average number of years that a new born baby could expect to survive if the current mortality rates for each age group, sex and geographic area remain constant throughout their life.

Healthy Life Expectancy: The estimated average number of years that a new born baby could be expected to live in ‘good’ or ‘very good’ health based on how individuals perceive their general health.

Criteria for Change:

• Performance improving if both males and females HLE has significantly increased or if HLE of one sex has significantly increased and there hasn’t been a significant change in the other.
• Performance maintaining if males and females HLE has significantly changed in opposite directions or if there hasn’t been a significant change for males and females. 
• Performance worsening if both males and females HLE has significantly decreased or if HLE of one sex has significantly decreased and there hasn’t been a significant change in the other.