Concepts

Life Expectancy

Citation Formats

General Reference

Health and Wellness Atlas. "Life Expectancy." Accessed August 29, 2026. https://dev-health.interactiveatlas.org/concepts/life-expectancy.

APA Style

Health and Wellness Atlas. (n.d.). Life Expectancy. Retrieved August 29, 2026, from https://dev-health.interactiveatlas.org/concepts/life-expectancy

BibTeX

@misc{healthandwellnessatlas-life-expectancy,
  author = {Health and Wellness Atlas},
  title = {Life Expectancy},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-health.interactiveatlas.org/concepts/life-expectancy},
  note = {Accessed August 29, 2026}
}

The average number of years a person born in a given year is expected to live if current mortality patterns hold constant across their lifetime, the single most used summary indicator of a population overall health and one of the World Health Organization core reported statistics.

Facts

First Described Era

1660s; the earliest documented work on life expectancy, including production of the first life table giving probabilities of survival by age, was done by John Graunt together with Christiaan Huygens and Lodewijck Huygens. 1

Concept Class

Public health, population statistics 2

Cross-Tradition Connections