Impact of Stalled Life Expectancy on Health and Economic Inactivity in the UK and the Case for Prevention

We show that the UK compares unfavourably with other countries and that the long-established pattern of increasing life expectancy since the 1950s has run out of steam. We investigate why years of improvement after 2010 have come to a halt, and what would have happened if austerity and the COVID pandemic had not occurred. We compare life expectancy with health expectancy and show that the gap between them is greatest between ages 50 and 70. We find an 11-year difference in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas and that a one-year decline in life expectancy is associated with a 2.5-year decline in health expectancy - giving a maximum gap of 21 years in the most deprived areas. A widening gap increases the demand for health care and, therefore, longer waiting lists for treatment. It also reduces economic activity. If there were no long-term sickness the ‘economically active’ rate would jump from 78.1% to 84.1%; while a 5-year improvement in health expectancy would increase the economic activity rate by 5.5%. The increased revenue from an expanded tax base and welfare savings could potentially fund, for example, a postponement in further increases in the state pension age. Achieving such a transformation will require large policy changes to improve population health, and some possible options are touched on.