Healthy life expectancy calculator

HALE weights years lived in less than full health downward, using population estimates of disability and disease burden. It is not a threshold age at which health suddenly ends; it is a summary measure of the health quality of a population's years.

This is why your result shows a range and why it separates 'estimated healthy years ahead' from 'later years with reduced health'.

Across European countries, HALE typically sits 10 to 13 years below total life expectancy. Improvements in medicine have extended survival with chronic conditions more than they have delayed their onset.

The practical implication: shifting the onset of chronic disease later matters more to lived experience than adding time at the very end.

Your estimated lifespan is multiplied by the country's HALE-to-life-expectancy ratio, with a small compression adjustment for profiles associated with lower chronic disease risk. The adjustment is capped at a few percent, because evidence for morbidity compression is suggestive rather than settled.