11- year life expectancy gap between parts of UK revealed
FIGURES SHOW there was an 11- year gap between the areas with the lowest and highest life expectancies in the UK between 2017 and 2019.
The average life expectancy in Yorkshire and the Humber now stands at 82.5 years for women and 78.8 years for men – an increase of one month since 2016 – according to Office of National Statistics ( ONS) data released yesterday.
Londoners had the highest life expectancy in England between 2017 and 2019 with people there expecting to live between 80.9 and 84.2 years, while those in the North East had the lowest at 78 years for men and 81.5 years for women.
The area with the lowest figure at birth was Glasgow City, at 73.6 years for men and 78.5 for women, the Office for National Statistics ( ONS) said.
There was an 11.3- year gap between Glasgow City and the area with the highest male life expectancy – Westminster, at 84.9 years.
The gap was 8.7 years for female life expectancy, with Westminster experiencing the highest at 87.2 years.
In England, there was a 10.5year gap between the highest life expectancy at birth for men and the lowest was 74.4 years in Blackpool.
For women, the gap was 7.7 years, with a life expectancy of 79.5 years in Blackpool.
Ben Humberstone, deputy director of the ONS’s Health and Life Events Division, said the findings “add to the growing inequality observed across different areas of the UK over the past decade”.
Overall life expectancy in England for men was 79.8 years and for women was 83.4 years – a rise of 2.8 months from 2014 to 2016 for both.
Dr Veena Raleigh, senior fellow at the King’s Fund, welcomed the modest overall rise, adding: “There is now a 10- year gap in life expectancy for
men in Westminster and Blackpool and a gap of almost eight years for women in the same areas.
“Moreover, the UK saw some of the smallest improvements in life expectancy among 21 similar OECD countries during 2011 to 2018, with only the USA reporting worse figures for both males and females.”
Dr Raleigh added: “The outlook for this year is grim. The impact of Covid- 19 could cause life expectancy in 2020 to fall to levels not seen for more than a decade, with poor and ethnic minority communities disproportionately affected.
“It’s vital that lessons from the first Covid wave are learned, action is taken to keep deaths to a minimum during the winter and that the Government gives much greater priority to levelling up and tackling inequalities.”
London has also experienced the largest gain in life expectancy for males ( 4.9) and females ( 3.9) since 2000 to 2003.
This compares with 3.3 and 2.4 years respectively for men and women in the North East.
The four most southerly regions – London, South East, East of England and South West – had higher life expectancy at birth estimates than the England average.
The West Midlands had the largest life expectancy gap between men and women in England, with a difference of 46.1 months.