Life expectancy
Key messages:
- Average life expectancy in 2012-2014 for
Bedford Borough is 80.2 years for men and 83.9 years for women. At
3.7 years, this gradually closing gap is the smallest it has been
since 2006-2008.
- Average life expectancy is increasing in
Bedford Borough; however there is room for further
improvement.
- There are variations in life expectancy
within Bedford Borough associated with social class / deprivation
and gender.
- For small areas within the Bedford Borough
life expectancy varies from 78.1 to 89.2 years for women and from
72.4 to 84.5 years for men in 2010-2014.
- Cancer, heart disease and stroke are the
biggest causes of premature death which reduce life
expectancy.
- Smoking and obesity are the biggest risk
factors for poor health and diseases that reduce life
expectancy.
To increase healthy life expectancy within
Bedford Borough the focus should be on:
- Reducing inequalities in health through
tackling the wider determinants of health such as education,
housing and employment.
- Preventative initiatives such as NHS Health
Checks and reducing the prevalence of smoking, obesity and harmful
drinking.
- Minimising the impact of long-term conditions
and ensuring services are designed to reduce mortality and
morbidity due to heart attack, stroke, cancers and respiratory
disease.
- Improving cancer awareness to increase early
detection and treatment.
- Promoting the influenza vaccine to people in
‘at risk groups’.
- Suicide prevention.
Overall picture
The overall health of a population can be
measured using life expectancy at birth.
Life expectancy at birth is a summary measure,
which describes in a single number the average length of life of
babies born now if they experience current death rates at each age
throughout their lives. It reflects the current death rates of
people living in the area, whether they were born in the area or
not.
Within Bedford Borough in 2012-14, life
expectancy was 80.2 years for men and 83.9 years for women. This
compares to 80.4 years for men and 83.8 years for women in the East
of England. In Bedford Borough, since 1991-93, the gap between male
and female life expectancy has narrowed from 5.5 years to 3.7 years
due to faster improvement in male life expectancy (figure 1).
Life expectancy has been increasing in
England, the East of England and Bedford Borough over the last few
decades (see figure 1). Male and female life expectancy in Bedford
Borough are similar to those in the East of England, however, the
trends for male and female life expectancy in the future looks to
be increasing slower than in the East of England and looks to drop
below the England trend in the next few years. Male and female life
expectancies are similar to that in countries with the highest male
and female life expectancies.
Life expectancy can also be measured from
other ages as starting points. Life expectancy at age 65 is 19.4
years for men and 21.9 years for women in Bedford Borough (2012-14)
compared to England (18.8 and 21.2) and EOE (19.3 and 21.6).
Source of data: HSCIC
Drivers of life
expectancy
Calculation of life expectancy is complex, but
the contribution of the different factors that reduce life
expectancy can be seen by using Years of Life Lost (YLL) due to
deaths before age 75 years. YLL is calculated by adding together
the years before 75 that people die. So a death at 70 contributes 5
years to the total and a death at 25 contributes 50 years.
Inequalities in life
expectancy
Geographically there is a large range of life
expectancy within Bedford Borough; the gap between the ‘best’ and
‘worst’ areas is 10.0 years for women and 4.2 years for men.
Figure 3: Life Expectancy at
birth
Source: ONS PHE 2015
Life expectancy has been calculated for Middle
Super Output Areas (MSOAs). Some of these correspond exactly to
wards, for others the match is not so straightforward. For women
the gap in life expectancy is 14.8 years (77.2 years in Harpur Ward
and the southern part of Clapham Ward and 91.9 years in Bromham and
Biddenham Ward and the eastern part of Kempston Rural Ward). For
men the gap is 12.2 years (71.3 years in Harpur Ward and the
southern part of Clapham Ward and 83.5 years in the northern
two-thirds of Riseley and Sharnbrook wards and the north west
portion of Wyboston ward.
Using MSOA data may exaggerate the
differences, as the confidence intervals are large. Additionally,
certain disadvantaged groups have even lower life expectancy which
is not identified in these area based measures.
Figure 4:
Life Expectancy for males and females 2010-2014
Source of data for map: ERPHO
The gap in life expectancy is driven by
increased mortality rates across a range of diseases as shown in
the chart below.
Figure 5: breakdown of the life expectancy gap
between Bedford Borough’s most deprived quintile and Bedford
Borough’s least deprived quintile, by broad cause of death,
2012-2014.
Source:
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/segment
Figure 5 shows the percentage contributions
towards the overall life expectancy gaps between the top and bottom
quintiles in Bedford Borough, for each broad cause of death.
For both males and females, this gap is
greatest for circulatory diseases, including coronary heart disease
and stroke.
Table 1: the life expectancy gap between
Bedford Borough’s most deprived quintile and Bedford Borough’s
least deprived quintile, by broad cause of death, 2012-2014
*The calculated contribution to the gap is
negative
Table 1 shows the percentage contributions and
years of life lost or gained for each cause of death. The number of
deaths occurring in the area in 2012-14 are shown, and alongside,
the number of excess deaths. Excess deaths are the number of
'extra' deaths that occur in the most deprived quintile because it
has a higher mortality rate for that cause of death than the least
deprived quintile. If these deaths were prevented, then the
contribution of that cause of death to the overall life expectancy
gap would be eliminated. In the case for deaths under 28 days in
males, there are no excess deaths in the most deprived quintile,
and therefore no impact is made to the life expectancy gap.
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