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While the gap between men and women's life expectancy is smaller than ever, there have been no significant improvements for Northern Ireland folks since 2012, it has been revealed.

New figures released by the Department of Health for those born between 2016-2018 outline the latest estimates on length of life and how long people are likely to stay healthy and live without disability.

While women are now expected to live an average of 82.4 years, up just 0.1 year since 2012, men can expect to live for 78.7 years up 0.4 years over the same period.

But it's reported that the time we have without a disability is falling.

Life expectancy has steadily increased from 1982 when women were estimated to reach 75.5 and men 69.2 - but in the last decade that growth appears to have petered off.

Less men are now dying of respiratory and circulatory conditions and cancer, but the numbers dying in accidents, taking their own lives or because of mental and behavioural conditions, metabolic or digestive diseases have gone up and as a result provide a negative contribution to life expectancy changes when compared with the previous period.

For women the number of those dying between 50 and 59 has gone down, and again, while cancer, genitourinary and some respiratory diseases are causing fewer deaths the numbers of women succumbing to mental and behavioural disorders such as vascular dementia, nervous system diseases, maternal and infant causes as well as chronic lower respiratory causes has risen - offsetting any real improvement in life expectancy rates.

Different parts of Northern Ireland also have different life expectancy rates. Men in Lisburn and Castlereagh are expected to live longest with men in Belfast lagging around five years behind.

For women, those living in Derry and Strabane have the lowest life expectancy of any area in Northern Ireland with Newry, Mourne, Down and Casueway Coast and Glens joint top.

Health inequalities

There are stark differences between the predicted length of life between the more well off and those living in deprived areas.

More deprived males are expected to live to around 70.2 years old and women 79.6.

In the most deprived areas both men and women are also expected to spend around two-thirds of their lives in good health, while their more well off counterparts can expect to spend four-fifths of their lives in good health.

Rates of suicide, respiratory deaths, women smoking while pregnant and people abusing drink and drugs are all higher in Northern Ireland's poorest neighbourhoods as well.

In 2016-18, females in Northern Ireland could expect to live 3.7 years longer than males as male mortality is higher than that of females across all age groups except for girls under nine, where there was higher female mortality mainly from congenital causes.

More men die of suicide, cancer and circulatory diseases.

Women were were 65 in 2016-18 are expected to live another 20.7 years, while men get just 18.4 years. Both sexes are expected to live a healthy life until they are around 60-years-of age - which hasn't changed in seven years.

Disability-free life expectancy was 57.3 years for males and 57.2 years for females in 2016-18. This represents a decline for both genders since 2012-14, with a fall of 3.0 years for males and 4.6 years for females.

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