Healthy life expectancy

Healthy life expectancy (or disability-free life expectancy) provides a useful, single measure by which the health status of a population can be measured. It gives an average of the years of life that can be expected to be lived in good health (or free from disability) from a given age. This is a useful measure to calculate when comparing two different populations or one population at different points in time, as it reflects the health of the population independent of age structure. When comparing populations it is important to ensure that the definition of disability used for each population is comparable.

To calculate healthy life expectancy you need:

• a current period life table
• age-specific prevalence rates of health conditions (or disability prevalence rates), given in the same age groupings as the life table. These are often obtained from cross-sectional surveys.

Details of how to calculate healthy life expectancy using Sullivan’s method are outlined in detail in Module 1 Session 8: Life Tables (II)