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Comparing two inequality gap methods

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Authors: Arthur Duncan-Jones, Bethan Patterson, Rachel Burton, Rhian Hughes, Lloyd Evans, Nathan Lester

Published on: 9th June 2022

  • All Wales/National

Life expectancy is a measure of the average expected years of life for a newborn based on recently-observed mortality rates. Healthy life expectancy represents the number of years a person might expect to live in good or very good health. Both measures are estimates for the general population.

The gap in health expectancies is calculated as the absolute difference between the least and most deprived fifths. This is a change of method since previous health expectancies releases, to improve the stability of the measure at local authority level. The gap was previously calculated using the Slope Index of Inequality (SII). ONS continue to publish the SII at national level as part of their HLE release. It is important to remember that health boards and local authorities which contain more extreme differences in deprivation levels will inevitably result in wider gaps in health expectancies, compared to areas which are more socio-economically similar.

Introduction

Life expectancy (LE), healthy life expectancy (HLE) and their inequality gaps are important indicators in the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF). The inequality gap in healthy life expectancy is a national indicator in the Well-being of Future Generations Act, which has previously been calculated using the Slope Index of Inequality (SII).

The Public Health Wales Observatory (PHWO) has historically used the Welsh Health Survey (WHS) to measure HLE and its inequality gap. Following the end of the WHS in 2015, this was no longer possible. Instead, PHWO decided to use the same survey as the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which is the Annual Population Survey (APS).

Due to concerns around the validity of the SII at local levels, the PHWO also decided to measure the inequality gap for LE and HLE using the absolute difference between the least and most deprived fifths. This report will outline the differences between the two methods and compare the results.

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Comparing two inequality gap methods: Absolute difference and the slope index of inequality

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