Regional and social variations in disability-free life expectancy in Great Britain

<p>This paper reports findings about inequalities in disability-free life expectancy (DFLE)in Great Britain in the 1980's, comparing social groups defined in terms of social class and area of residence. Previous research has shown that there exist considerable inequalities both in expectation of life and in healthiness. Calculations in this paper show that the combined effect of these is that variations in disability free life expectancy follow a similar pattern to variations in expectation of life, but the differences are more exaggerated. The result is to give four or more years extra healthy life to people living in the south-east of England compared with the north, and as much as nine years more healthy life to men in the top as compared with the bottom social classes.