Scots life expectancy falls for first time in 35 years
●New statistics described as a ‘wake up call’ for public health in Scotland ●But separate report shows dramatic drop in teenage drinking over 10 years
Life expectancy levels in Scotland have fallen for the first time in 35 years, prompting demands for a “wake-up call” over public health.
Men can now expect to live to the age of 77 north of the Border, while women will live until 81.1, according to official figures released yesterday.
The situation has stalled across the UK, although elsewhere people can expect to live far longer than Scots. Women can expect to live until 82.9 Uk-wide, which is unchanged from previous years, while male life expectancy is 79.2 years. But men in Wales and Northern Ireland have also seen a fall in life expectancy levels.
Scotland’s life expectancy rates are now on a par with former eastern bloc European nations such as Estonia, Poland and Lithuania and well behind Scandinavian nations, which are among the healthiest in the world.
Experts are still unclear about the reasons behind the slump, although virulent strains of flu in recent years and the rise of diet-related illnesses such as diabetes are among the possible reasons.
There has also been an increase in older people dying due to dementia
and Alzheimer’s disease. Among younger age groups there has also been an increase in the number of drug, alcohol and accidental deaths.
Sarah Wild, professor of epidemiology at Edinburgh University, said recently she believed the politics of austerity over the past eight years would have also played a role, including worsening social care levels, fuel poverty and disability benefit cuts.
Scottish Labour’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar said: “For the first time in 35 years the life expectancy of both men and women has fallen in Scotland. That is a statistic which should shame both the Tory and SNP governments.
“After more than a decade of the SNP in charge of the country’s health service, Scotland has the lowest life expectancy rates of any part of the UK.”
Life expectancy for women fell from 81.15 years for those born in 2014-16 to 81.09 years for those born in 2015-17. For males, rates went from 77.07 years to 77.02 years over the same period.
While rates have increased by 7.9 years for men and 5.8 years for women over the past 35 years, the figures showed Scotland still had the lowest life expectancy of the four nations in the UK.
A Scottish Government spokesman said life expectancy and healthy life expectancy in Scotland had increased “over the long term”, while premature deaths in the most deprived areas were down 11 per cent since 2007.
“We are focussed on addressing the underlying causes that drive health inequalities, which has income inequality at its heart,” he said.
“Our bold package of measures to help tackle key issues such as smoking, obesity, inactivity and alcohol misuse will support people to live longer, healthier lives.
“Today’s Scottish Health Survey showed that there is progress and that young people are in many cases leading the way with better choices.
“We are also tacking the wider causes of health inequalities through measures such as investing in affordable housing, providing free school meals and continuing commitments like free prescriptions and free personal care, and are investing more than £100 million every year to mitigate the UK government’s welfare cuts.”
Annie Wells, Scottish Conservative public health spokeswoman, said: “For years increases in life expectancy have indicated improvements in health and quality of life, therefore this decrease in life expectancy has implications.
“This is indeed a wake-up call for everyone involved in public health improvement in Scotland.”
Life expectancy in the UK is lower than in many other comparable countries internationally, separate figures produced by the ONS yesterday found.
Although some other countries across Europe, North America and Australia have seen a slowdown in life expectancy, the situation is worst in the UK.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-hamilton stated: “Life expectancy falling for both sexes, for the first time in 35 years, should ring alarm bells at the very top of government.”
For a very long time, Scotland’s reputation as the sick man of Europe was entirely deserved.
Our national tendency towards excess – whether in drinking, smoking, or eating unhealthily – was reflected in worryingly high levels of stroke, cancer and heart disease. Premature death was to be expected for many Scots.
Scotland has started to turn this situation around in recent years. Policies such as the ban on smoking in public places and campaigns about the risks of bad diet and inactivity mean this generation of young Scots is better educated than any of its predecessors about the health risks and how they may be avoided. For more than three decades, life expectancy has slowly risen in Scotland.
So it is particularly troubling that this trend has reversed.
Official figures show that life expectancy in Scotland has fallen for the first time since 1983.
Inevitably, these new statistics have led to political outcry. Scottish Labour’s health spokesman, Anas Sarwar, said that the drop in life expectancy for Scots should “shame” the SNP at Holyrood and the Tories at Westminster.
Mr Sarwar is perfectly entitled to do this but we wonder whether politicians might be in danger of over-simplifying the reason for this disturbing turn.
It may, indeed, be the case that governments north and south of the Border have the played their part in the development of the current situation but this is something we cannot know for sure, right now.
In fairness to members of the Scottish Parliament, they have a good track record – across the parties – of taking seriously the health problems which cut many Scots’ lives short. And we do not believe there is a lack of political will from any party to make further strides in cutting the number of smokers and heavy drinkers.
This being so, we are not especially impressed by political sniping in response to the new statistics.
Although progress has been made over the past 35 years, nobody in politics or the NHS believes the problem of enduring poor health among sections of Scottish society can be easily solved. Scotland has taken small, but significant, steps forward in recent years when it comes to public health.
Rather than politicking over this issue, MSPS should redouble their efforts – together – to ensure the situation improves.