Health Foundation finds two‑year HLE drop

The Health Foundation said on April 26 that healthy life expectancy in the UK has fallen by about two years over the past decade, to just under 61 years for both men and women. (health.org.uk) (bbc.co.uk) Healthy life expectancy measures how many years a person can expect to live in “good” health, combining death rates with self-reported health. The Health Foundation’s analysis covers the decade to 2022-24. (health.org.uk 1) (health.org.uk 2) The sharpest figures are in England’s poorest communities. In 2022-24, healthy life expectancy at birth was 49.8 years for males and 48.2 years for females in the most deprived areas, compared with 69.2 and 68.5 years in the least deprived areas. (ons.gov.uk) That leaves an inequality gap of 19.3 years for males and 20.1 years for females in England, according to the Office for National Statistics. The same release said healthy life expectancy in the most deprived areas fell by 2.2 years for males and 3.2 years for females versus 2019-21. (ons.gov.uk) The Health Foundation said the decline is not only a pandemic story. Its wider work points to a health slowdown that began after 2011, alongside widening inequality and weaker progress than in comparable countries. (health.org.uk 1) (health.org.uk 2) The charity has tied those trends to long-running drivers outside the National Health Service, including poverty, housing, work, smoking, alcohol and unhealthy food. In a separate briefing, it said tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food are the leading preventable risk factors driving ill health in England. (health.org.uk 1) (health.org.uk 2) The latest ONS figures also show life expectancy recovering somewhat from the COVID-19 shock without restoring healthy years of life in the poorest places. In England’s most deprived areas, overall life expectancy remained below pre-pandemic levels in 2022-24 even after rising from 2019-21. (ons.gov.uk) The Health Foundation has argued that meeting the government’s long-standing goal of adding five years of healthy life expectancy by 2035 is far off track. In a 2024 analysis, it said that on then-current trends, achieving that gain would take 192 years. (health.org.uk) The data leave the same picture the report opened with: people in the UK are not only living shorter lives in poorer areas, but spending far fewer of those years in good health. (health.org.uk) (ons.gov.uk)