Increased longevity whithout quality of life is an empty prize. Health expectancy is more important than life expectancy.
Dr Hiroshi Nakajima, Director-General, W.H.O 1997
The proposed new EU structural indicator Healthy Life Years (HLY) is a disability-free life expectancy, one of the most common health expectancies reported. It is based on limitations in daily activities and therefore measures the number of remaining years that a person of a particular age can expect to live without disability.
Health expectancies were first developed to address whether or not longer life is being accompanied by an increase in the time lived in good or in bad health. So health expectancies divide life expectancy into life spent in different states of health. In this way they add a dimension of quality to the quantity of life lived. There are as many health expectancies as dimensions of health.
