Healthy life expectancy (HALE): how it's measured vs healthspan

Oct 22, 2026

Prepared by: Research Desk. Sources are linked for verification.

When researchers want to know not just how long people live, but how many of those years are spent in good health, one of the main numbers they use is healthy life expectancy, usually shortened to HALE. It appears in global health reports, national statistics and aging research, and it is often used in the same breath as "healthspan".

The two ideas are related, but they are not the same thing. This explainer covers what HALE measures, how it is calculated, where the best-known estimates come from, and why it should not be read as a forecast for any one person. It reports published research only.

What healthy life expectancy means

Ordinary life expectancy answers one question: on average, how many years would a person born today live if current death rates stayed the same?

Healthy life expectancy adds a second layer. It estimates how many of those years would be lived in full health, after accounting for time spent with illness, injury or disability. The years left over (life expectancy minus HALE) are, roughly, the expected years lived in less than full health.

Two points are worth keeping in mind from the start:

HALE is a population measure. It describes a country, region or city at a point in time, not a specific individual.
HALE is a modelled estimate. It combines several data sources and assumptions, so different studies can produce somewhat different figures.

How HALE is calculated, in plain English

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, the largest ongoing effort to estimate HALE worldwide, combines two ingredients for each location, age group and sex [1]:

Death rates by age. These feed a standard life table, the same tool used for ordinary life expectancy.
Years lived with disability (YLDs) per person. For each condition, researchers estimate how many people live with it and how much it limits health, using a severity weight between full health and death. Adding these across conditions gives the share of each year of life that is, on average, lived in less than full health.

The life table says how many years people in each age band are expected to live. The disability estimates then "discount" those years by the average burden of ill health at that age. Add up the discounted years, and the result is HALE.

A related measure from the same study is the disability-adjusted life-year (DALY). One DALY represents one lost year of healthy life, combining years lost to early death and years lived with disability. The GBD 2017 analysis estimated DALYs for 359 diseases and injuries alongside HALE for 195 countries and territories, covering 1990 to 2017 [1].

The same approach can be applied at smaller scales. For example, a Chinese study estimated health-adjusted life expectancy for residents of the city of Guangzhou from 2010 to 2019 [2]. City-level estimates like this let local researchers compare trends over time within one population.

Why HALE numbers vary between sources

Readers sometimes find different HALE figures for the same country and wonder which is "right". Differences usually come from:

Data inputs. Death registration quality and disease surveys differ between places and years.
Severity weights. How much a given condition is judged to reduce health affects the final number.
Method updates. Large studies such as GBD revise their models between rounds, so a 2017 estimate and a later estimate for the same year may not match exactly [1].
Naming. "Healthy life expectancy" and "health-adjusted life expectancy" are often used for closely related measures [1][2].

The practical takeaway: compare HALE figures from the same study and the same round where possible, rather than mixing sources.

HALE vs healthspan: a population average vs a personal concept

Healthspan is usually described as the period of life lived in good health, free from serious chronic disease and disability. It sounds like HALE, and in everyday writing the words are sometimes swapped. Researchers, however, do not use a single definition. A 2025 systematic review of how studies define healthspan found a range of definitions in use, rather than one agreed formula [3].

	Healthy life expectancy (HALE)	Healthspan
Level	Population (country, region, city)	Usually discussed for individuals or study groups
Type	Modelled statistical estimate	Research concept with several definitions
Inputs	Death rates plus disease prevalence and severity weights	Varies: disease onset, disability, function, self-rated health and more
Typical use	Comparing places and tracking trends over time	Framing aging research goals
Can it be "your" number?	No, it is an average	Only in the sense of a person's own lived experience

In short, HALE is one carefully defined way of putting a number on healthy years across a population. Healthspan is the broader idea that HALE tries, in part, to capture.

For a wider introduction to healthspan and the lifestyle factors large human studies link to it, see our evidence-ranked healthspan research guide.

The healthspan gap

Much of the interest in HALE comes from the gap between total years and healthy years. Mayo Clinic researchers writing in 2021 noted that life expectancy has risen substantially over recent decades but that healthspan has not kept pace, with chronic disease as a major barrier, and they called this the "healthspan gap" [4].

HALE is one of the tools that makes this gap visible at population scale: when life expectancy rises faster than HALE, the expected number of years lived in less than full health grows.

Aging biology offers one explanation for why chronic conditions cluster in later life. Researchers have described a set of "hallmarks of aging", biological processes that change with age and are studied as shared drivers of age-related disease [5]. This is mechanistic research, much of it from cell and animal studies, and it does not by itself translate into population HALE figures.

Individual measures are a different tool

Because HALE cannot describe one person, researchers have developed separate, individual-level biomarkers. One example is DunedinPACE, a DNA methylation measure from a blood sample that was designed to estimate the pace of biological aging in an individual [6]. It was developed in a long-running birth cohort in New Zealand.

Measures like this answer a different question from HALE ("how fast does this person appear to be aging biologically?" rather than "how many healthy years does this population average?"). They remain research tools, and a biomarker result is not a HALE estimate.

HALE and the oldest age groups

HALE is usually reported from birth, but researchers also study healthy years remaining at older ages.

The GBD 2019 study published a dedicated analysis of the burden of diseases and injuries for adults aged 70 and over, across countries and regions [7]. Work like this shows which conditions account for most lost healthy years later in life.
A 2026 analysis focused on people aged 95 and over, examining patterns in causes of death and illness, risk factors and life expectancy among the oldest old [8]. It reflects how population research now extends to the far end of the age range.

Common misreadings

"HALE predicts how many healthy years I have left." It does not. It is an average built from population data, and individual outcomes vary widely.
"A rising HALE means everyone is healthier." Averages can rise while some groups see little change.
"Products can add years of healthy life expectancy." HALE is a population statistic, and no product label can change it. The FDA describes health fraud as the promotion of products with unproven health claims and lists warning signs on its health fraud page [9]. Our guide to how longevity supplements and anti-aging claims are regulated covers what labels can and cannot say.

Frequently asked questions

Is healthy life expectancy the same as healthspan?

Not exactly. HALE is a specific, modelled population statistic that combines death rates with the burden of illness and disability [1]. Healthspan is a broader research concept that studies define in several different ways [3].

Can HALE be calculated for a single person?

No. HALE depends on population life tables and average disease burden, so it only makes sense for groups such as countries, regions or cities [1][2]. Individual-level research uses other tools, such as biological aging biomarkers [6].

Why do HALE figures differ between reports?

Studies use different data sources, severity weights and model versions, and big projects update their methods between rounds [1]. Comparisons are most reliable within a single study and release.

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Not medical advice. This page reports published research and regulatory records for information only.

Research-only notice: Content on this site is provided for research and educational purposes only and is not intended for human use. It is not medical advice.

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