Health expectation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The health expectancy , Switzerland life expectancy in good health , the average expected the a statistical indicator, the healthy years of life (English: Healthy Life Years) is calculated. Closely related to this is the disability-free life expectancy ( BFLE ); this measures the number of years a person is likely to experience without a long-term disability.

Healthy Life Years Indicator (GLJ)

The health expectancy is from Eurostat calculated with the indicator "healthy life years" (HLY). This statistical indicator of health expectancy is calculated separately for men and women at birth and at the age of 50 and 65 years. For this purpose, data on the proportions of the healthy and sick population and data on age-specific mortality are evaluated. Good health is defined as the absence of functional limitations / disabilities. The key figure “Healthy Years of Life (GLJ) at the age of 65” indicates the number of years that a person at 65 will still live in good health. The key figure “GLJ” is therefore an indicator of health expectation , which links information on mortality and illness. For this purpose, data on the age-specific proportions of the healthy and sick population and data on age-specific mortality are used. Good health is defined by the absence of functional restrictions / complaints. The figure is also called symptom-free life expectancy (BFLE).

The measure is calculated using the Sullivan method, which is based on data on the age-specific proportion of the population with and without disabilities and on mortality data. This method is often used because it is uncomplicated, because the basic data are available and because it can be used for many countries regardless of the size and age structure of the population. However, the GLJ indicator can be influenced by cultural differences with regard to the reporting of disabilities.

Ranking health expectations in the EU member states

EU comparison Healthy life expectancy at birth (2016)


  • The GLJ estimates are provided for the 27 EU Member States using the EU-SILC data for 2016
    (see figure on the left).
  • The analyzes of the values ​​for healthy life years indicate significant inequalities between the European countries.
  • The health expectation in Sweden is 16.0 years higher for men than in Austria .

See also:
Health system in Austria

See also:
Demography of the European Union

Table of health expectations in the EU member states

EU comparison Healthy life expectancy at birth and at the age of 65 (2016)

Definition of the term life expectancy - health expectation

Health expectation

Under health expectancy is defined as the healthy life expectancy (also: life expectancy without disability or years of healthy life ). This denotes the number of years "that a person is expected to live in good health". In Germany, the “healthy life expectancy at birth” was given as 68.5 years for women and 64.8 for men (with large income-related differences).

Definition of life expectancy

One indicator closely related to health expectancy is life expectancy . The life expectancy is the average expected length of time that a living being until his from a given instant death , with certain assumptions to be based on the mortality rates remains. These are usually determined with the help of a life table , usually a period life table , which is based on observed mortality rates in the past and on model assumptions for their future development. In principle, the point in time from which the remaining life expectancy is to be determined can be selected as desired. In the general case, it is the period that begins with the biological development of the living being.

In 2015, the global average life expectancy of people assuming constant death rates was 71.4 years .

Calculating life expectancy

Most often, life expectancy is calculated from the moment of entry into life - for people from birth . Life expectancy at birth indicates the average age that newborns of a certain age group would reach if the age-specific mortality rates remained constant in the future. Often the total population of newborns is not considered, but a subpopulation selected according to certain criteria (e.g. by place of residence, gender). Information about the statistical spread of life expectancy is interesting . In this sense, the term was applied to things and things, especially to products. The different uses of the term life expectancy often lead to unclear formulations and misunderstandings. These are due in particular to the fact that life expectancy is usually an estimate that changes over time.

One important reason is that when looking at life expectancy, it is often overlooked that it increases with the age of the living individuals of the same birth cohort. Example: A cohort has a life expectancy of 75 years at birth. However, after 60 years, part of the original expectation has already died. The still living group of 60-year-olds now has a life expectancy of over 25 years, which means that they will reach an average age of 85 years. However, this does not change the average life expectancy at all. Using the same calculation, an 80-year-old has a remaining life expectancy that can total over 90 years. This is crucial when making demographic forecasts, for example when calculating pensions.

A similar fallacy can occur with the life expectancy of certain occupational groups. The life expectancy of bishops is significantly higher than that of auto mechanics . This is primarily not because of the healthier way of life, but because bishops cannot die at 25 because they are not yet bishops at that point.

Similarly, child mortality can disproportionately distort life expectancy from birth. For most of the Middle Ages, a total life expectancy of the population of 30 years and less is assumed. It should be noted that life expectancy was by no means constant due to epidemics, wars and disasters. The life expectancy of women was 24 to 25 years, that of men 28 to 32 years. However, if you look at the life expectancy of those who have survived the first year of life, it increases by leaps and bounds. If childhood was survived, the average age could be over 40. In industrialized countries, mortality in the first year of life is now less than one percent.

The average life expectancy of men, which is lower than that of women, is influenced in the same way by the more risky lifestyle of young men during adolescence. Far more young men than women between the ages of 16 and 25 die from traffic accidents and other risk factors in this age group, which has an impact on statistical overall life expectancy. Men up to 65 years of age are 3.6 times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than women. In the middle years in particular, up to around 65 years of age, almost twice as many men die as women.

A special case is the life span observed on the life tables. Here, only looking back, it is determined when and how many people of a year of birth died. In the extreme case, one would only know the exact mortality for 100% of this one cohort 120 years after 1980 (in the example 2100).

In addition, life expectancy, average age and maximum age are often not conceptually separated. For example, the Caucasus is considered to be home to a particularly large number of people aged 100 and older. However, the average life expectancy in these countries is significantly below the level of western industrialized countries.

Factors influencing health expectation

Health awareness and lifestyle

Scientists cite the lower health awareness of men as the cause of the different health expectations, which is expressed, among other things, by the fact that men smoke more and drink more alcohol, and consult a doctor less often when symptoms of illness are present. A study published in 2011 that examined data from 30 European countries concluded that between 40 and 60 percent of the gender difference in health and life expectancy was due to smoking tobacco. 10 to 30 percent can be attributed to the consumption of alcohol. But also the higher willingness to take risks and the potentially higher morbidity rate in typical male occupations, which are often associated with hazardous work and physically damaging or stressful activities, are cited as causes. Further causes can be found in the articles Heavy Labor and Share of Women in the Private Sector .

In a comparison of life expectancy between members of the order and the general population, the monastery study revealed that there are significantly lower differences in gender-specific life expectancy among members of the order. Compared to the general population, the life expectancy of monks is around 4.5 years significantly higher than that of the general male population, while there are no such differences between the female comparison groups. In addition to the higher tobacco consumption, the causes lie in the unequal distribution of stressors between women and men, the unequal selection caused by both world wars and their long-term long-term consequences, the lower participation of women in working life and housewife in combination with motherhood . In this way, biological causes of excess mortality in men can be largely excluded. Overall, the contribution of biological causes to male excess mortality is estimated at 0 to 2 years of life lost. All in all,

"That women live a little longer, but above all men die earlier"

- Marc Luy 2006 in "Do women live longer or do men die earlier?"

Only certain groups of the male population seem to be responsible for the lower life expectancy of men. Paola Di Giulio from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR in Rostock ) identified the groups of "active bon vivants " (often overweight heavy workers and smokers; predominantly men) and the " nihilists " (corpulent non-athletes and preventive health care - in this group equal parts men and women). On the other hand, the group of “interventionists” (non-smokers, non-drinkers with a healthy diet and no stressful job) consists mainly of women.

nutrition

The amount of food consumed has an impact on health expectations and lifespan. It has been shown in a large number of animal species that a reduced diet, a so-called calorie restriction , can significantly extend the life span. In a study, 115 substances were able to increase the life expectancy of roundworms by between 30% and 60%. One of the active substances, which is similar in structure to an antidepressant, was examined more closely. It turned out that it influences the reaction to the body's own messenger substance serotonin, which is responsible for the feeling of hunger in humans. After eating, the anabolic hormone insulin is released, it stimulates the metabolism and promotes the division of some cells (such as adipocytes ). With poor food, less insulin is released and the cells live longer.

Further information

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Life Expectancy  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Healthy life years (CODED - Eurostat Concepts and Terms Database) , accessed April 22, 2019
  2. ↑ EuroStat Glossary: ​​Healthy Life Years (GLJ) , accessed on April 22, 2019
  3. ↑ Glossary: ​​Death . European Union. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
  4. ↑ Healthy Years of Life and Life Expectancy at Age 65 by Gender , EuroStat, accessed April 22, 2019
  5. ^ Sullivan's Method , accessed April 22, 2019
  6. ↑ a b EuroStat statistics explained: Healthy life years statistics , accessed on April 22, 2019
  7. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 1177/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 16, 2003 on Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)
  8. ↑ Glossary: ​​Healthy Life Years (GLJ). eurostat, February 19, 2016, accessed on October 2, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Mean life expectancy at birth and healthy life expectancy. In: Gesundheit in Deutschland, 2015. Federal Health Reporting, 2015, accessed on October 2, 2018 .
  10. ↑ WHO | Life expectancy
  11. ↑ Maike Vogt-Lüerssen: The everyday in the Middle Ages . with 156 images. 2. revised Edition. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2006, ISBN 3-8334-4354-5 ( online [accessed May 30, 2013]).
  12. ↑ Contribution of smoking-related and alcohol-related deaths to the gender gap in mortality: evidence from 30 European countries (PDF; 158 kB) In: Gerry McCartney, Lamia Mahmood, Alastair H Leyland, et al. . January 12, 2011. Retrieved January 21, 2011.
  13. ↑ Marc Luy : Why women live longer . Findings from a comparison of the monastery and general population. In: Materials on Population Science . No. 106 . Federal Institute for Population Research , 2002, ISSN  0178-918X , DNB  965668789 ( bib-demografie.de [PDF; 1.5 MB ; accessed on December 6, 2015]). PDF; 1.5 MB ( Memento of the original dated December 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bib-demografie.de
  14. ↑ Marc Luy: Insa Cassens, Marc Luy , Rembrandt Scholz (ed.): The population in East and West Germany. Demographic, social and economic developments since the fall of the Wall . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften , Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8350-7022-6 , The gender-specific mortality differences in West and East Germany with special consideration of the war-related long-term effects on cohort mortality, p. 169–198 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  15. ↑ Marc Luy: Hella Ehlers, Heike Kahlert , Gabriele Linke, Dorit Raffel, Beate Rudlof, Heike Trappe (eds.): Gender difference - and no end? Social sciences and humanities contributions to gender research . 1st edition. tape 8 . LIT Verlag, Berlin / Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-8258-1647-6 , 10 years monastery study - knowledge gained and open questions about the causes of the different life expectancy of women and men, p. 251–273 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  16. ^ German-Austrian monastery study. Austrian Academy of Sciences , accessed on March 2, 2012 (HEMOX, ERC Project No. 262663).
  17. ↑ Reiner H. Dinkel, Marc Luy: Nature or Behavior? A contribution to the explanation of the male excess mortality by comparing the monastery and general population. In: Journal for Population Science. Vol. 24, 2/1999, pp. 105-132. http://www.marc-luy.de/pub/ml001.pdf (PDF).
  18. ↑ Marc Luy: Do women live longer or do men die earlier? In: Public Health Forum. Volume 14, Issue 50, 2006 (PDF; 3.1 MB).
  19. ^ Marc Luy, Paola Di Giulio: The impact of health behaviors and life quality on gender differences in mortality . In: J. Geppert, J. Kühl (Hrsg.): Gender and life expectancy . Gender competent - contributions from the Gender Competence Center. tape 2 . Kleine, Bielefeld 2006, p. 113-147 .
  20. ↑ Werner Bartens: Elixir of life for a worm. on: sueddeutsche.de , November 22, 2007.