Analysis of recent changes in chronic disease-free life expectancy in Algeria

Abstract

Background: No official estimates have been published regarding healthy life expectancy in Algeria, and chronic disease-free life expectancy in particular, despite their importance for assessing public health policy effectiveness and predicting social security expenditure. Aims: To estimate chronic disease-free life expectancy in Algeria and analyse its changes in recent years, and to determine how morbidity has changed according to age, time, and gender, compared with mortality, following expansion of morbidity, compression of morbidity, or morbidity–mortality balance. Methods: We used Sullivan’s method to estimate chronic disease-free life expectancy in Algeria using data provided from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys and national life tables published by the Office for National Statistics for 2006, 2012–2013, and 2018–2019. The changes in healthy/unhealthy years compared with life expectancy were analysed. Results: Although Algerian women live an average 1–2 years longer than men, their chronic disease-free life expectancy is 5 years shorter. The gain in life expectancy between 2006 and 2018–2019 was accompanied by a decline in chronic disease-free life expectancy from 62.36 and 57.27 years to 61.13 and 55.64 years for men and women, respectively. Conclusion: Algerians in 2018–2019 lived longer but not healthier than in 2006, and the number of unhealthy life years increased compared with life expectancy. Thus, public health programmes need to be more efficient to increase healthy years faster, or at least at the same pace as life expectancy.