Multi-country analysis of Healthy Life Expectancy Gap

Life expectancy (LE) at birth is one of the most used indicator to quantify possible future lifespan and quality of life of populations. However, critical challenges are associated with health conditions in later life, during which the need for appropriate healthcare facilities and long-term care systems is intensified. In this context, switching to indexes that consider future life expectancy in good health results to be more informative. In this paper we focus on the Healthy-Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) and construct the Healthy Life Expectancy Gap Ratio (HGR). HALE measures the average number of years that an individual will spend in good health while HGR provides a normalized measure of the inequality in health between countries. Taking into account HALE at birth of the global population over the period 1999-2023, made available by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), and considering High-Income countries as a benchmark, a functional data clustering procedure is applied to global HGR with the aim of providing a multi-country perspective and to assess for similarities among different areas. Our findings shows that distinct clusters can be observed, suggesting a heterogeneous pattern of convergence toward high-income health standards. These results emphasize the need for a strong intervention to improve health system quality and public health policy in order to mitigate factors shaping HGR different dynamics.