Population Health Framework: evidence paper

Footnotes

1 Life expectancy at birth is a measure of the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if current mortality rates continue to apply (WHO, 2006).

2 NRS calculate life expectancy in as a three-year average, produced by combining deaths and population data for the three-year period.

3 HLE combines mortality data with survey information on the general health of the population to provide an estimate of the average number of years that people are living in good health.

4 95% confidence intervals are reported after the HLE estimate in brackets. 60.4 (± 0.5) means that we are confident that the true value lies within 0.5 above or below 60.4.

5 The shaded area shows the upper and lower 95% confidence intervals.

6 The Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) is an annual survey which provides information on the health and factors relating to health of people living in private households in Scotland.

7 The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is a measure of how deprived an area is. A score is given to all of Scotland’s datazones (small area geographies) based on several indicators of deprivation. The datazones are then ranked 1 to 6,976 based on their score. The rankings are split into 10 equally sized groups for SIMD deciles and five groups for SIMD quintiles.

8 People are in relative poverty if their income is less than 60% of the current median income. People are in absolute poverty if their income is below 60% of the UK median income from 2010/11, adjusted for inflation (Catalano et al., 2024).

9 For 2021, height and weight measurements were self-reported and then adjusted according to formulae developed by Public Health England for use on the Active Lives survey from Health Survey for England data. The formulae have the effect of increasing self-reported weight and decreasing self-reported height, particularly among older adults.

10 For 2022 and 2023, both self-reported and interviewer administered height & weight measurements were combined. The self-reported measurements were adjusted according to Public Health England's formulae.

11 Data for 2020 have not been included, as data collection was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

12 These comprise at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity, or an equivalent combination of the two per week.

13 Data for 2020 have not been included, as data collection was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

14 Data for 2020 have not been included, as data collection was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

15 The ASH Smokefree GB Youth Survey is an annual survey of a representative sample of 11-18 year olds in Great Britain. It is carried out online by YouGov. Up to 2023, the Scotland sample consisted of about 200 young people. In 2024, the Scottish Government purchased a booster sample to provide more robust analysis. The analyses are based on data weighted to be representative by age and gender of all children age 11-17 years in Scotland.

16 NRS uses the terminology “drug misuse deaths” in their ‘Drug-related deaths in Scotland’ statistical publication, which is consistent with the terminology used in other parts of the UK. However, due to the potential for this to be stigmatising language, the more neutral “drug deaths” is used here to refer the same figures.

17 QALY is a measure of the state of health of a person or group in which the benefits, in terms of length of life, are adjusted to reflect the quality of life (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), 2025). One QALY is equal to 1 year of life in perfect health. QALYs are calculated by estimating the years of life remaining for a patient following a particular treatment or intervention and weighting each year with a quality-of-life score (on a 0 to 1 scale).

18 Best Start Foods replaced the UK Government’s Healthy Start Vouchers in Scotland.

19 This is calculated based on deprivation quintiles from 2021-2023. For males, the average was 76.8 years and life expectancy in quintile 1 was 70.4 years. For females the average was 80.8 years and life expectancy in quintile 1 was 75.9 (see NRS).