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  1. Life expectancy at birth is not usually what is used for this purpose. If life expectancy is used at all it is at age 65 (as living after this is more closely related to health.) But more normally still is the QALY measure – quality adjusted ife years – as this takes into account both life expectancy and also quality of life.

    The OECD produces reasonably comparable statistics for high income countries for all these other measures.

    • I like life expectancy at 65 more myself, it has more bearings on reality. However, the downside is that there are long lags unrelated to present health policy given the large role of in-utero (Baker hypothesis) and early childhood outcomes. As such, if a country “improved” in health care efficiency in the last ten years, it will take longer for the life expectancy at 65 to register.

      DALYs (or HALE) are better, but they are hard to measure and one can easily get quagmired in a debate. But by far, the best measure available when available.

Please keep it civil


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