THE length of time that men in East Renfrewshire can expect to live in good health has fallen by two years, a new report shows.
Figures from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) reveal that, between 2019 and 2021, the average healthy life expectancy for men in the local area was 66.7 years.
Healthy life expectancy is an estimate of the number of years lived in ‘good’ or ‘very good’ general health, based on how people perceive their state of health at the time of completing the annual population survey.
Between 2018 and 2020, men in East Renfrewshire could expect to live 68.7 years in good health, which means there has been a drop of 104 weeks.
However, the average healthy life expectancy of women in the area rose by 10 weeks, to 67.2 years, between 2019 and 2021.
Out of all the 32 council areas in Scotland during this period, East Renfrewshire men were ranked fourth highest and women ranked fifth highest for average healthy life expectancy.
Orkney was the area with the highest healthy life expectancy for both men and women, at 71.7 years and 76.4 years respectively.
The areas with the lowest number of years spent in good health were North Lanarkshire for men (54.3 years) and North Ayrshire for women (52.1 years).
Across Scotland as a whole, the average healthy life expectancy was 60.4 years for men and 61.1 years for women.
Healthy life expectancy across the country has decreased in each of the last five years for women and for the last four years for men.
Maria Kaye-Bardgett, NRS statistician, said: “It’s important to recognize the difference between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy but also how they impact each other.
“These figures show that people living in the most deprived communities are more likely to report their health as poor, so they have a shorter healthy life expectancy.
“We already know from life expectancy figures that people in the most deprived communities die at younger ages. Using both sets of figures, we can say that males and females in the most deprived communities spend more than a third of their lives in poor health.
“In comparison, people in the least deprived areas can expect to live around 15 per cent of their lives in poor health and will enjoy longer lives.”