The terms, in plain English.

The average number of years a newborn would live if the death rates at each age seen during the reporting period stayed the same for the rest of their life. It is a period measure: a summary of current death rates, not a forecast for anyone born today. ONS publishes it every year, by sex, for every UK council, including English districts.

The average number of years a newborn would live in “good” or “very good” general health, as people rate their own health in a survey, on the same period basis as life expectancy. ONS’s annual series publishes it by sex for upper-tier and single-tier councils; ONS’s separate census-based estimates also cover English districts and neighbourhoods. Lifemap’s main measure.

Life expectancy minus healthy life expectancy: the average number of years people in an area would live in less than good health, at current rates. Lifemap calculates it from the ONS figures; ONS does not publish it as a separate statistic.

ONS publishes separate figures for men and women. Where Lifemap shows a single figure, it is the simple mean of the two, rounded to one decimal place. It is not the same as a figure for the whole population, which ONS does not publish at council level.

Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy can also be given for people who have reached 65: the average number of further years, and further years in good health, at current rates.

The range ONS publishes around each estimate, within which the true value is likely to lie. Narrow for life expectancy; much wider for healthy life expectancy, which relies on a survey, and widest for councils with small populations.

When Lifemap compares a council with another figure using confidence intervals, it says “above” or “below” only when the two intervals do not overlap, and “similar to” when they do. See the methodology.

A crude percentage is the share of the actual adult population. An age-standardised percentage is adjusted to a standard age profile, so places with older or younger populations can be compared. Public Health Wales publishes age-standardised figures; the other nations’ figures on Lifemap are crude.

A healthy life expectancy estimate that uses the Census 2021 general-health question instead of the annual survey, over a different period. ONS publishes these for every council in England and Wales, districts included, and for neighbourhoods (MSOAs). They are not comparable with the annual series.

A measure of the gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived parts of an area, taking every deprivation band into account and weighting each by its population, rather than comparing only the two extremes. Published for English councils by OHID.

A label ONS gives to statistics whose methods are still being developed or reviewed. ONS applies it to its current healthy life expectancy estimates because of problems with the Annual Population Survey’s sample.

The county or unitary council that runs strategic services such as adult social care and public health. England has 151: 62 unitary authorities (area codes starting E06), 36 metropolitan boroughs (E08), 32 London boroughs (E09) and 21 counties (E10). Scotland’s 32 councils (S12), Wales’s 22 principal areas (W06) and Northern Ireland’s 11 districts (N09) are single-tier. Most public-health statistics are published at this level.

The lower-tier council that handles housing, planning and bin collection. England has 164, each inside one of the 21 counties (E07). Some measures are published for districts and some only for counties; Lifemap fetches both.

The nine-character Government Statistical Service code for each UK administrative area: E07000106 is Canterbury; S12000049 is Glasgow City. Codes change when councils are reorganised.

Northern Ireland’s 5 Health and Social Care Trusts. The Health Survey Northern Ireland publishes adult lifestyle figures for trusts only, not for council districts, so Lifemap shows them as trust figures.

A small statistical area in England and Wales, typically home to several thousand people, used for neighbourhood statistics.

England’s NHS commissioning bodies. Their areas differ from council areas; Lifemap does not use ICB data.

England’s official measure of relative deprivation for small areas (LSOAs), combining income, employment, education, health, crime, housing and living environment. The latest edition, which Lifemap uses for council deprivation scores, is IMD 2025. A decile is a tenth of all small areas ranked by deprivation; decile 1 is the most deprived tenth.

Wales’s equivalent. ONS reports Welsh healthy life expectancy by quintile (fifths) rather than deciles.

Scotland’s and Northern Ireland’s equivalents. Lifemap does not currently use them.

A body mass index of 25 or above: everyone classified as overweight or obese. The threshold for England (OHID indicator 93088), Wales (National Survey for Wales) and Scotland (Scottish Health Survey), so the three nations’ figures in this column are comparable.

The narrower threshold used by the Health Survey Northern Ireland figures shown for HSC Trusts (and by older Scottish releases). A trust figure is not comparable with the BMI 25 or over column.

The UK Chief Medical Officers’ guideline: at least 150 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity a week (or 75 minutes of vigorous activity). Used by the English (OHID indicator 93014), Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland sources.

The UK Chief Medical Officers’ drinking guideline. OHID indicator 92778, the Scottish Health Survey’s “hazardous or harmful” category, Public Health Wales’s “drinking above guidelines” and the Health Survey Northern Ireland’s combined “increased” and “higher risk” groups all use this threshold.

Adults who report eating five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

Adults who say they currently smoke. England’s figure comes from the Annual Population Survey (OHID indicator 92443, adults 18 and over); Scotland’s, Wales’s and Northern Ireland’s from their own national surveys, whose questions are worded slightly differently.

The UK’s national statistical office. Source of life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and the figures by deprivation.

Part of the Department of Health and Social Care. Publishes England’s public-health indicators through Fingertips.

OHID’s public-health data platform, fingertips.phe.org.uk. Lifemap uses its /api/all_data/csv/for_one_indicator endpoint.

A large ONS household survey. It provides the self-rated health behind healthy life expectancy and England’s council smoking figures.

Sport England’s survey, behind England’s council figures for physical activity, weight and five a day.

The Scottish Government’s annual survey of adult health. Council-area results, pooled over several years, are published on an interactive dashboard, from which Lifemap downloads the data.

Pooled answers from three Scottish Government surveys (the Scottish Health Survey, the Scottish Household Survey and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey), large enough to give council-area smoking figures.

The Welsh Government’s annual survey, which replaced the Welsh Health Survey in 2016. Lifemap uses it directly for weight (2019–20, the last council-level results) and, through Public Health Wales, for the other four measures.

Public Health Wales’s set of accredited official statistics, derived from the National Survey for Wales. Source of Welsh smoking, drinking, activity and five-a-day figures, published age-standardised.

The predecessor of the National Survey for Wales, which ran until 2015. No longer used by Lifemap.

The Department of Health (Northern Ireland)’s annual survey. It publishes adult lifestyle figures for the 5 HSC Trusts, not for the 11 council districts.

The UK government’s standard open-data licence: free to copy, publish and adapt, provided the source is acknowledged. The sources Lifemap uses are published under it unless noted on /sources/.