Healthy Life Years

[2] HLY measures the number of remaining years that a person is expected to live at a certain age without the disability.

In addition life expectancy without long term activity limitation, based on the disability question, was selected in 2004 to be one of the structural indicators to be examined every year, during the European Spring Council for assessing the EU strategic goals (Lisbon Strategy) under the name of “Healthy Life Years” (HLY).

[5] Furthermore the European Union is co-funding a Joint Action on Chronic Diseases and Promoting Healthy Ageing across the Life Cycle (CHRODIS-JA).

[6] This aims to promote and facilitate a process of exchange and transfer of good practices between European countries and regions, addressing chronic conditions, with a specific focus on health promotion and prevention of chronic conditions, multimorbidity and diabetes.

Detailed information on the Health Expectancies in Europe are available from the EurOhex Advanced research on European health expectancies[7] while latest Healthy Life Years values can be found on the general public website devoted to the Healthy Life Years.

General symptoms mean the assessment of physical and psychological sensations that could usually be determined by a physician or a psychiatrist.

They are the possible independent characteristics influencing as a result also the total amount of healthy life years.

All these factors when taken into account could impact the chance of people getting certain diseases or losing their ability to perform a daily life activity.

With these adverse health effects, these people would have limited ability or in other words are not considered as healthy as members of a family from their same race who live in a wealthy town where their water pipes are tested every now and then.

Overall, many sociological factors need to be considered when calculating the number of healthy life years that people can live.