Read more: <\/b>Northern Ireland health workers urged to get flu jabs to avoid \u2018recipe for disaster\u2019 this winter<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Since 1980-82, life expectancy at birth has increased by 7.1 years for females and 9.6 years for males. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n It currently sits at 78.8 for men and 82.6 for women \u2013 a gap of 3.8 years. <\/p>\n However, over the last ten years, life expectancy growth has slowed for males while the slowdown in female life expectancy has been evident over the last twelve years.<\/p>\n Higher mortality from circulatory diseases, cancer and accidental deaths contributed to almost three-quarters of the gap between male and female life expectancy in 2022-24. <\/p>\n By council area, life expectancy for men was highest in the Lisburn & Castlereagh at 80.5 years and lowest in Belfast at 76.5. <\/p>\n Similarly, women in Lisburn & Castlereagh and Fermanagh & Omagh have the highest life expectancy at 83.8 years, while those born in Belfast have the lowest at 80.5 years.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Men born in the 20% least deprived areas roughly maintained a gap of 7.2 years greater life expectancy over men born in the 20% most deprived areas. <\/p>\n This gap increased slightly for women, rising from 5.2 years to 5.5. The report says that in 2022-24, \u201cmales living in the 20% most deprived areas of NI could expect to live 74.6 years, 7.2 years less than those living in the 20% least deprived areas (81.8 years)\u201d.<\/p>\n However, the most notable statistics were in the \u2018Healthy and Disability-Free Life Expectancy\u2019 with women faring worse than men. <\/p>\n The report states: \u201cOver the last five years, Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) decreased for both males and females, however the change for males was not statistically significant.\u201d<\/p>\n The statistics also show that female HLE decreased by 1.9 years from 62.1 years in 2018-20 to 60.2 years in 2022-24 and that over the same period, male HLE decreased by 0.8 years from 60.1 to 59.3 years \u201chowever this change was not statistically significant\u201d.<\/p>\n Similar to HLE, female \u2018Disability-Free Life Expectancy\u2019 (DFLE) decreased over the last five years, by 2.4 years, from 59.0 years in 2018-20 to 56.6 years in 2022-2 and over the same period, male DFLE decreased by 1.2 years from 58.2 to 57.1 which again the report describes as \u201cnot statistically significant\u201d.<\/p>\n The report also compares statistics between more or less socially deprived areas.<\/p>\n The report adds: \u201cBetween 2018-20 and 2022-24, the male HLE deprivation gap widened by 2.9 years from 12.0 years to 14.9 years. Over the same period, there was no notable change in the female HLE deprivation gap which stood at 14.6 years in 2022-24.<\/p>\n \u201cThe female DFLE gap between the most and least deprived males narrowed from 12.1 years in 2018-20 to 10.0 years in 2022-24. Over the same period, there was no notable change in the gap for males which stood at 11.8 years in 2022-24.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"Special](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765346839_311_BNTZQ5VUABFELDAIXPN5Y3VFEE.jpg\")
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