Life expectancy for poorer Derry women falls for second consecutive year
Female life expectancy in Derry and Strabane’s most deprived areas has declined for the second consecutive year, new data have shown.
Poorer women in the city and district can now expect to live to 77.6 years – a year-on-year decrease from the 78 years recorded in 2024.
That’s a shortening of life expectancy by almost five months.
There is also a large inequality gap between the Derry City & Strabane average life expectancy for women and that for women living in its 20 per cent most deprived areas.
The average woman in Derry and Strabane can expect to live to 81.3 years of age and enjoy 3.7 more years of life than a woman living in one of the city’s deprived areas.
Life expectancy for poorer men, meanwhile, improved marginally from 71.6 years to 72.2 years year-on-year; an increase of just over six months.
But again there was a large gap between the Derry City & Strabane average life expectancy and that for poorer men.
On average men can expect to live to 77.4 years with poorer men suffering a considerable gap of 5.2 years.
The Department of Health’s latest annual report examined health inequalities over the 2021-23 period.
Statistics show that whilst the gap between richer and poorer in Derry & Strabane was high, there were also large inequalities in health between Derry and other parts of the North.
In Derry City & Strabane, for example, male life expectancy (77.4 years) was 1.3 years less than the average for the North (78.8 years) and female life expectancy (81.3 years) was 1.2 years less than the average (82.5 years).
The annual report shows that across 32 health outcome indicators analysed, 15 were worse than the average for the North, 17 were similar to the average, and none of the health outcomes analysed were better than the average.
Furthermore it demonstrate that the majority of outcomes were significantly worse for those residing in the 20 per cent most deprived areas of Derry City & Strabane LGD when compared with the Derry City & Strabane LGD average.
The worst health gaps were for drug and alcohol-related death and illness and the under-20 teenage birth rate.
In Derry/Strabane’s 20 per cent most deprived areas the death rate for drugs was 146 per cent the district average, the death rate for alcohol was 127 per cent the district average, the admission rate for alcohol was 113 per cent the district average, the admission rate for drugs was 100 per cent the district average, and under age teenage birth rate was 96 per cent the district average.
There were, the report states, exceptions. These were ‘deaths due to covid, suicide rate, low birth weight, babies born small for gestational age, and primary 1 & year 8 overweight and/or affected by obesity, where differences were not statistically significant’.
Analysts report that generally, ‘following a downward trend in male and female life expectancies between 2017-19 and 2020-22 in NI and the most and least deprived areas, estimates have largely returned to pre-pandemic levels’.