New data estimating healthy life expectancy — how long you live in good health — has been published.

The Office for National Statistics data has been collected based on self-assessment and has been broken down by sex and area.

It reveals that the variation in healthy life expectancy within the Harrogate district ranges hugely, from 59 years to 74 years in men and 62 years to 76 years in women.

The outliers

Much of the Harrogate district is at the upper end of the healthy life expectancy scale, with an age over 71. 

However, there are a couple of notable outliers.

For men these were:

Harrogate East – 59 years

Starbeck – 64 years

Knaresbrough Central – 65 years

Ripon South and East – 66 years

Bilton – 67 years

Saltergate – 67 years

Harrogate Central - 68 years

For women this followed a similar pattern, with the following data:

Harrogate East – 62 years

Starbeck - 66 years

Knaresborough Central – 67 years

Ripon South and East – 67 years

Saltergate – 68 years

You can check your postcode here.

Healthy life expectancy is a collective term for summary measures of health that add a quality dimension to estimates of life expectancy, considering disability and other ailments.

In England, the median healthy life expectancy at birth for males was 65 years; there was a gap of more than 13 years between the areas at the lowest 10% (57 years) and highest 10% (71 years). For females, the median was 67 years; there was a gap of 14 years between the areas at the lowest 10% (59 years) and highest 10% (73 years).

The estimates are based on health state information gathered from the 2021 status, and this level is the smallest geography in which they can be produced.