Regional Indicator 13: Life Expectancy at Birth

Why It's Important This is a key indicator measuring the overall health of citizens in a jurisdiction. An increasing life expectancy at birth indicates that the overall health status of the population is improving while a decreasing life expectancy indicates a general deterioration in a population's health status. Factors affecting life expectancy include access to health care, diet, environment, wealth and economic development.

Regional Indicator Thirteen is the average number of years that a child is expected to live based on the mortality rates prevailing at the child's birth.

Life expectancy at birth increased throughout the province between 1998 and 2007. Improvements ranged from six months in Kelowna to three years in Vancouver and Victoria.

Regional BC had the lowest 2007 life expectancy at 80.1 years and Victoria had the highest at 82.4. The difference is just over two years which is close to the 1998 to 2007 gain seen in Regional BC.

Year-to-year decreases in life expectancy at birth are rare and the ones that do occur are usually small or reversed in the following period. Of the changes in the 1998 through 2007 period, there were no decreases in Vancouver or Regional BC whole while there was one in Abbotsford, two in Kelowna and three in Victoria.