Extra healthy years or just extra years?

Abstract

Does increasing life expectancy give us extra healthy years or just extra years?

Life expectancy is increasing and an important question is whether or not our extra years are spent in good health. Healthy life year’s addresses this question by measuring the number of years that people can expect to live in good health. New figures published by Eurostat show that people in the EU27 can expect to live 62 years free from disability or limitation of their daily activities. IPH examines how health expectancies among older people vary across the island of Ireland and highlights the challenges in interpreting different health expectancy measures across different studies and countries.