Abstract:

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The term “life expectancy” represents the “average age at death” or the “average time lived” by members of a life table cohort. Although, life expectancy by definition is an average, it is common to find the term “average life expectancy” in scientific literature, particularly in medical/epidemiological journals. We look at multistate life tables and show that it is important to make a clear use of “average life expectancy” to denote the expected survival time in a given state when its members enter at different ages. Furthermore, the simple mathematical formulations of the “average life expectancy” allow calculating also “average life years lost”. Looking at a health-disease model and at Danish data, we show the disadvantage way in which persons with mental health disorders live/die in a population.