Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy changes between 2000 and 2015: an analysis of 183 World Health Organization member states

Aim

To analyze the changes and inequalities in life expectancy (LE) and healthy life expectancy (HLE) of 183 World Health Organization (WHO) member states between 2000 and 2015, focusing on gender differences.

Subjects and methods

An exploratory study was carried out. The database containing information about male and female LE and HLE at birth and at the age of 60 years old, for the years 2000 and 2015, was gathered for each country from WHO’s global health observatory.

Results

Countries with low LE (respectively HLE) are obtaining greater gains in LE (respectively HLE), overcoming infant mortality, while countries with greater LE (respectively HLE) are improving the elderly’s survivorship. Gains in LE are expected to be followed by gains in HLE, but such gains are getting smaller over time. The female-male LE gap is strongly correlated with the female-male HLE gap. A regression towards the mean is observed regarding the gender gap.

Conclusions

Monitoring of LE and HLE indicators is important to assess the health situation in countries across time, detecting both successful and unsuccessful cases. In our analysis, we noticed that African countries are overcoming the bad results of the 1990s and that army conflicts are the main cause of losses in LE in the third millennium.