Main Points
Because of decreasing Annual Population Survey sample sizes, this release is designated as official statistics in development and uses the same interim method to estimate “good” health prevalence as in our 2021-2023 publication. See the section on ‘New methodology and Official Statistics in Development', below, for more information.
- In 2022-2024 healthy life expectancy at birth in Scotland was 59.4 years for females, and 59.1 years for males.
- Healthy life expectancy at birth has been decreasing since 2014-2016 for females and males.
- While life expectancy increased in 2022-2024 to around pre-pandemic levels, healthy life expectancy has continued to decrease.
- In 2022-2024, healthy life expectancy was higher than the Scottish average for females and males in Orkney Islands, East Renfrewshire, Perth and Kinross, Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, and City of Edinburgh.
- Over the same period, healthy life expectancy was lower than the Scottish average for females and males in North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire. It was also lower than the Scottish average for males in North Ayrshire.
- There is a wide gap between healthy life expectancy in the most and least deprived areas.
- Females in the most deprived areas are expected to spend 26.7 years less in good health than females in the least deprived areas.
- Males in the most deprived areas are expected to spend 25.6 years less in good health than males in the least deprived areas.
Interim methodology and Official Statistics in Development
Estimates of Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) in this publication are based on how people rate their own health in the Annual Population Survey (APS). Due to issues around decreasing APS sample sizes, it is no longer possible to produce reliable estimates of HLE under the methodology used in older HLE publications (which calculated the prevalence of good health by age, sex and local area directly from survey responses).
Because of this, the estimates in this publication were produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) using a new methodology. This new methodology, which ONS first used in their December 2024 Healthy Life Expectancy in England and Wales publication (webpage), uses logistic regression modelling to reduce the effect of decreasing APS sample sizes by borrowing strength from the larger sample used in the model. Data from the 2011 and 2022 Censuses were also used to produce imputation adjustment factors and census-based health state prevalence. More detailed information about this new methodology can be found in ONS' Estimating "good" health prevalence for use in healthy life expectancy outputs article (webpage), and in the Quality and Methodology Information report Health state life expectancies, UK QMI: 2021 to 2023 - Office for National Statistics (webpage).
Because the estimates in this publication have been produced using the same interim methodology as our previous ‘Healthy Life Expectancy, 2021-2023’ publication, they are not comparable to estimates in our previous publications released before 2025, which used a different methodology based on APS responses only. Revised Life Expectancy estimates have also resulted in some very small changes from our previous publication. A back series of estimates produced using the new method from 2013-2015 to enable comparisons over time.
Due to availability of underlying APS data, estimates for Scotland, Council areas, and NHS Health Boards for 2013-2015 and 2014-2016 have not been updated to reflect updated Life Expectancy estimates. Also due to availability of underlying APS data, the back series for HLE by SIMD decile and quintile, and Scottish Government Urban Rural classification is available from 2014-2016.
This publication is designated as Official Statistics in Development because the Accredited Official Statistics status of ONS outputs using APS data has been suspended. As set out above, ONS have produced the estimates in this publication using the same new methodology used for their most recent Healthy Life Expectancy publications. More information is available in our open letter to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) (webpage).
Healthy life expectancy in Scotland
Healthy Life Expectancy at birth
In 2022-2024, HLE at birth was 59.4 (±0.8*) years for females and 59.1 (±0.7) years for males.
Since the start of the time series in 2013-2015, HLE was highest for both sexes in 2014-2016, and has been decreasing since then.
The gap between female and male HLE at birth has narrowed over time. HLE at birth for females and males has been very similar for the most recent three-year periods.
*Please see the Why do we report confidence intervals? section for more information on the confidence intervals presented in brackets alongside HLE estimates.
Figure 1: Healthy life expectancy at birth has continued to decrease for females and males
Healthy life expectancy at birth, Scotland, 2013-2015 to 2022-2024
Note: Please note that the y-axis starts at 55 years, rather than at 0 years. This is so that it is easier to see detail in the chart, however we would caution users that the scale may make small changes over time appear larger than they are.
Healthy Life Expectancy aged 65-69
In 2022-2024, HLE for females aged 65 to 69 was 10.4 (±0.3) years, and healthy life expectancy for males aged 65 to 69 was 9.5 (±0.3) years. HLE for females aged 65 to 69 has decreased since 2019-2021. HLE for males has shown signs of a decrease over the same period, however this is less clear due to the uncertainty around the estimates.
Figure 2: Healthy life expectancy at age 65-69 has decreased in recent years for females, and has shown signs of decreasing for males
Healthy life expectancy at age 65-69, Scotland, 2013-2015 to 2022-2024
Change in healthy life expectancy compared with change in overall life expectancy
We can compare healthy life expectancy (HLE) to overall life expectancy (LE) to see the proportion of life spent in good health. Please see our Life Expectancy in Scotland publication (webpage) for more information on overall life expectancy in Scotland.
Female LE has been consistently higher than male life expectancy across the time series. Female HLE has historically been higher than male HLE, but by a much smaller margin, and has been more similar to male HLE in the most recent periods. This means that females spend a greater proportion of their life in poor health than males.
While LE has increased for both females and males in 2022-2024, likely due to this period being the first to not include 2020 or 2021, which saw the highest mortality due to COVID-19, HLE has not increased, as shown in Figure 4. This means that a greater proportion of life is likely to be spent in poor health now than in previous years.
As the proportion of LE which is spent in good health is created using two estimates (LE and HLE) which both have uncertainty around them, additional caution is required when interpreting these figures, particularly where differences between estimates are relatively small.
Figure 3: Females spend a greater proportion of their life in poor health than males
Healthy life expectancy at birth presented as a proportion of life expectancy at birth for females and males, 2013-2015 to 2022-2024
Figure 4: Unlike life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy at birth has not shown signs of recovery to around pre-pandemic levels in the latest period
Healthy life expectancy and life expectancy at birth in Scotland by sex, 2013-2015 to 2022-2024
Note: Please note that this chart has dual y-axes which start at 58 years (HLE) and 70 years (LE), rather than at 0 years. This is so that it is easier to see detail in the chart, however we would caution users that the scale may make small changes over time appear larger than they are.
Confidence intervals around estimated life expectancy may be too narrow to be visible in the chart, depending on resolution.
As shown below in Figure 5, as age increases, LE and HLE both decrease, as expected.
Figure 5: As age increases, the proportion of remaining LE spent in good health decreases
Healthy life expectancy and life expectancy at all ages in Scotland, 2022-2024
As for previous periods, in 2022-2024 there is a wide gap between HLE at birth in different council areas, as shown in Figure 6 below.
- In 2022-2024, healthy life expectancy was higher than the Scottish average for females and males in Orkney Islands, East Renfrewshire, Perth and Kinross, Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, and City of Edinburgh.
- Over the same period, healthy life expectancy was lower than the Scottish average for females and males in North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire. It was also lower than the Scottish average for males in North Ayrshire.
Figure 6: There is a wide gap between the highest and lowest HLE by council area for both females and males
Healthy life expectancy at birth in council areas with 95% confidence intervals by sex, 2022-2024
Note: Please note that the y-axis starts at 45 years, rather than at 0 years. This is so that it is easier to see detail in the chart, however we would caution users that the scale may make small differences appear larger than they are.
Healthy life expectancy in NHS health boards
Caution: There is greater uncertainty around healthy life expectancy estimates for smaller populations
Please see the note above for more information.
We publish information on life expectancy in Scotland’s NHS health boards in our tables, which are available to download further down this page.
Healthy life expectancy by area deprivation (SIMD)
In 2022-2024:
- In the 10% most deprived areas, HLE for females was 44.2 (±3.2) years, and 44.8 (±2.8) years for males.
- In the 10% least deprived areas, HLE for females was 70.9 (±2.1) years, and 70.4 (±1.8) years for males.
The difference in HLE between the most and least deprived areas is very wide: 26.7 years for females, and 25.6 years for males.
Like LE, HLE is lower in more deprived areas and higher in less deprived areas.
Figure 7: HLE is lowest in the most deprived areas, and highest in the least deprived areas
Healthy life expectancy at birth by SIMD decile and sex, 2022-2024
Healthy life expectancy in urban and rural areas
For both females and males, HLE is highest in rural areas, and lower in urban areas.
Figure 8: HLE is highest in rural areas and is lower in more urban areas for both females and males
Background
What is healthy life expectancy?
Healthy life expectancy (HLE) is an estimate of the number of years lived in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ general health, based on how individuals perceive their state of health at the time of completing the annual population survey (APS).
How are the statistics calculated?
As set out in the New Methodology and Official Statistics in Development section above, estimates of HLE in this publication are based on how people rate their own health in the Annual Population Survey (APS). Due to issues around decreasing APS sample sizes, it is no longer possible to produce reliable estimates of Healthy Life Expectancy under the methodology used in our previous Healthy Life Expectancy publications (which calculated the prevalence of good health by age, sex and local area directly from survey responses).
HLE estimates for Scotland in this publication are based on data collected as part of the Annual Population Survey (APS). Data from the 2011 Census and 2022 Census were used to obtain health state prevalence rates. Survey data are not routinely collected for those aged under 16 years, and only sparsely for those aged 85 years and over, so data from the 2011 and 2022 Censuses were used to produce imputation adjustment factors and census-based health state prevalence.
More detailed information about this new methodology can be found in ONS' Estimating "good" health prevalence for use in healthy life expectancy outputs article (webpage), and in the Quality and Methodology Information report Health state life expectancies, UK QMI: 2021 to 2023 - Office for National Statistics (webpage).
More information on the life expectancy figures included in this publication is available in our Life Expectancy in Scotland publication (webpage). More detailed information on methodology for our Life Expectancy statistics is available in the Life Expectancy for Scotland methodology document (PDF, 576KB), however please note that this document also contains information on our previous HLE methodology used prior to the 2021-2023 publication, which is not relevant for this publication.
To align with the approach taken for our Life Expectancy in Scotland statistics, statistics by SIMD use appropriate version of SIMD for each year within this analysis, and statistics by Urban Rural classification use the 2020 6-fold Urban Rural classification for all years. For 2014, 2015 and 2016, SIMD16 is used, and SIMD20 is used for all subsequent years. This means that some three-year periods are calculated using two versions of SIMD.
Why is it useful to analyse healthy life expectancy?
Healthy life expectancy provides insight into the proportion of life expectancy spent in good health.
It is important to understand how healthy life expectancy and life expectancy are changing relative to each other, as this can determine the current and future health state of the population. For this reason, HLE is of particular use in monitoring and investigating the health inequalities across Scotland and directing public health targets.
These figures are also used to help deliver local and national services in addition to use for teaching and research purposes.
Why do we report confidence intervals?
95% confidence intervals are included to measure the uncertainty around the estimates. In this report, the confidence intervals are quoted in brackets beside the central estimate, for example 65 (±0.7) years. The plus-minus sign, ±, indicates that the upper limit of the confidence interval can be found by adding the figure in the bracket to the central estimate, and the lower limit can be found by subtracting the figure in the brackets from the central estimate. In this example, the upper limit would be 65.7 years, and the lower limit would be 64.3 years.
95% confidence intervals are calculated so that, if the analysis to produce an estimate was repeated many times, 95% of the time the true unknown value would lie between the lower and upper confidence limits.
Estimates from larger populations, such as Scotland as a nation, will have smaller confidence intervals than estimates for smaller populations, such as Council Areas and Health Boards. The larger amount of uncertainty around estimates for smaller geographies means that extra caution must be taken when making comparisons between estimates.
Does falling healthy life expectancy mean that people are falling into ill-health at younger ages?
Similar to life expectancy, healthy life expectancy is an average which is affected by people falling into ill health at younger ages as well as in old age.
If the proportion of people in older age groups reporting that they are in good health hasn’t changed very much, but the proportion of younger people reporting that they are in good health has decreased, we might expect to see HLE at birth fall but HLE at older ages remain similar.
Related Statistics
Life expectancy figures for Scotland featured within this publication are available on our website: Life Expectancy in Scotland, 2022-2024 - National Records of Scotland (NRS) (webpage).
ONS have produced healthy life expectancy estimates using the new methodology for England and Wales: Healthy life expectancy, UK: between 2011 to 2013 and 2022 to 2024 - Office for National Statistics (webpage). These estimates are comparable to the Scotland estimates in this report.
ONS have also produced statistics on healthy life expectancy by area deprivation for England and Wales, and plan to update this analysis in April 2026: Healthy life expectancy by national area deprivation, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (webpage).
Information about our statistics
Official Statistics in Development
These statistics are designated as Official Statistics in Development.
In previous years, our Healthy Life Expectancy publication has been designated as Accredited Official Statistics. The new methodology used in this publication was developed by ONS and first used in their latest Healthy Life Expectancy publication. Estimates produced using this methodology are based on results from the Annual Population Survey (APS).
Following an evaluation of the quality of statistics based on the APS, ONS requested suspension of Accredited Official Statistics status for their outputs based on the APS, which includes their HLE publications. Concerns centred around estimates for smaller geographies, which are particularly relevant to Scotland given its relatively smaller population compared to the UK, and having several Local Authorities and Health Boards with particularly small populations.
We have designated this publication as Official Statistics in Development to ensure statistical coherence, and to make the limitations of the results clear to users. More information is available in our open letter to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) (webpage).
Information on background and source data
Further details on data source(s), timeframe of data and timeliness, continuity of data, accuracy, etc. can be found in the metadata that is published alongside this publication on the NRS website.
We also provide information about upcoming publications (webpage) on our website.
If you would like receive updates on our statistics, you can register your interest on the Scottish Government ScotStat website (webpage).
New excel workbook uploaded at 10:15 on day of release (19 February 2026) due to a correction of a minor typographical error in the title of Table 4.
