Health
More men die from alcohol-related causes than women
Life expectancy at birth
Life expectancy at birth for both males and females has improved over the past century. The average life expectancy at birth for females born in 2004-06 in the UK is 81.3 years compared with 76.9 years for males.
The number of years that men and women can expect to live in good or fairly good health and free from a disability or limiting long term illness has also increased over time. In the UK in 2004 healthy life expectancy at birth for females was 70.3 years compared with 67.9 years for males. Disability-free life expectancy for females born in 2004 in the UK was 63.9 years and for males 62.3 years. Consequently, while women can expect to live longer than men, they are also more likely to spend more years in poor health or with a disability.
Chronic sicknesses and long standing conditions like coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, back problems and arthritis are some of the most common illnesses to impair quality of life. Arthritis and rheumatism are the most common types of chronic disease in Great Britain and in both sexes prevalence increases with age. Women are more likely to suffer from arthritis and rheumatism than men. In 2006 the rate of 229 per 1,000 women aged between 65 and 74 was much higher than the rate of 144 per 1,000 men.
Over the past 30 years, circulatory diseases including ischaemic heart disease and stroke, have been the most common cause of death in the UK for both males and females. However, deaths attributed to circulatory diseases have shown the greatest decline and in 2006 became the second most common cause of death for females after cancers. In 1971, directly age-standardised death rates for circulatory diseases were 6,936 per million males and 4,285 per million females. By 2006 these rates had fallen to 2,462 per million males and 1,559 per million females.
Cancers (neoplasms) became the most common cause of death for females in 2006 and remained the second most common cause of death for males. For males, death rates from cancer peaked in 1984 at 2,899 per million and subsequently fell to 2,201 per million in 2006. Death rates from cancers for females reached a peak in 1989, at 1,905 per million, and then fell gradually to 1,569 per million in 2006.
The trends in the incidence of lung cancer in the UK are strongly linked to trends in cigarette smoking among men and women. The decline in smoking among men may be related to a reduction in lung cancer deaths (see related links: Health-related behaviour). The male lung cancer death rate fell sharply from 104 per 100,000 in 1981 to 54 per 100,000 in 2006. In contrast, the rate among females rose gradually from 26 per 100,000 in 1981 to around 30 per 100,000 in 1987, and has since stabilised.
Death rates from alcohol-related causes
There has been an increase in the proportion of men and women exceeding the recommended daily alcohol limit (see related links: Health-related behaviour). The death rate from alcohol-related causes, including alcohol-related illnesses and accidental poisoning with alcohol, has also increased for men and women. Among men the death rate has doubled from 9.1 per 100,000 in 1991 to 18.3 per 100,000 in 2006. For women, the death rate from alcohol-related causes increased from 5.0 per 100,000 in 1991 to 8.8 per 100,000 in 2006.
Source: Life tables, 2004-06, Government Actuary's Department; General Household Survey, 2006, Office for National Statistics; Mortality by leading cause groups, Office for National Statistics; General Register Office for Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; Lung cancer all ages age-standardised death rates, 1981-2006, Office for National Statistics; Welsh Cancer Intelligence Centre and Surveillance Unit; Scottish Cancer Registry; Health Statistics Quarterly 37, Office for National Statistics
Notes: Life expectancy at birth: the average number of years a new-born baby would survive if he or she experienced age-specific mortality rates for that time period throughout his or her life. 2006 based projections for 2007 to 2021.
Healthy life expectancy has three year moving average data that cover the period 2003-05.
Incidence rates for lung cancer are for all ages and age-standardised to the European standard population.
Death rates from circulatory diseases and alcohol-related causes are age-standardised to the European standard population. International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is a coding scheme for diseases and causes of death. The Tenth Revision of the ICD (ICD10) was introduced for coding the underlying cause of death in Scotland from 2000 and in the rest of the UK from 2001. Therefore rates from 2000/2001 are not directly comparable with those for earlier years because of the change from ICD-9 (ninth revision) to ICD-10.
Alcohol-related causes include alcohol related illnesses and accidental poisoning with alcohol but excludes other external causes of death such as road traffic and other accidents.
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