Norfolk population

Life expectancy

Nationally, life expectancy has continued to improve throughout the past few decades. This has been attributed to:

• Improvements in public health, such as childhood immunisation
• Medical advances in treating diseases, such as heart disease and cancer
• Lifestyle changes, such as a decline in smoking

This improvement has also been observed locally in Norfolk and Waveney. Life expectancy in Norfolk and Waveney has consistently been higher than the national average for both males and females over time.

Decrease in life expectancy

Over the last ten years this improvement had levelled off and, most recently from 2018 to 2020, life expectancy has declined nationally and locally for both males and females. For Norfolk and Waveney, life expectancy fell slightly for males to 79.9 years and for females to 83.8 years.

Life expectancy for people with a learning disability

Although life expectancy is increasing for people with a learning disability, evidence shows that adults with a learning disability will still have a shorter life expectancy than the general public. On average:

• A female with a learning disability will have an 18 year shorter life expectancy than the general population
• A male with a learning disability will have a 14 year shorter life expectancy than the general population

Visit the NHS digital website for further information about life expectancy and these statistics.

Healthy life expectancy

Living a healthy life is as important as living a long life.

'Healthy life expectancy' is the average number of years that a person can expect to live in 'full health'.

Data from the office for health improvement and disparities 2022, shows that between 2018-2022, on average:

• A female in Norfolk would expect to live to approximately 84 years old but have a healthy life expectancy of 63.9 years. This means that a woman spends approximately 24% of her life or 20 years in poor health.
• A male in Norfolk would expect to live to approximately 80 years old but have a healthy life expectancy of 62.9 years. This means that they spend 21% of their total life or 17 years and 1 month in poor health.

Although females live longer than males, they spend a longer amount of their life in poor health. This is in line with what we see nationally.

Cause of death

As we are living longer, the leading causes of death are changing. The death rates from heart disease and stroke, once clearly the most common causes of death, have reduced substantially in the last decade.

At the same time there has been a doubling of the death rate from conditions associated with extreme old age and frailty such as dementia, which is now the leading cause of death in women.

It is increasingly common for people with a long-term condition to have at least one other condition. The number of co-morbidities increases with age, with older people more likely to have several long-term conditions.

For people with a learning disability the main causes of death for adults in England are:

• Circulatory diseases
• Respiratory diseases
• Cancer