North Tyneside Overview of health and wellbeing

Inequalities in life expectancy

Health inequalities are avoidable, unfair and systematic differences in health between different groups of people.

Males
The gap in life expectancy in the borough is 11.4 years for males.


Line graph showing inequalities in male life expectancy at birth from 2010-12 to 2018-20. North Tyneside's life expectancy fluctuates, starting at 10.6 years and ending at 11.4 years. It is generally lower than the North East region but higher than England.

Source: OHID Fingertips March 2024

This has remained stable since 2014-16. The gap is lower than the average for the NE (the largest gaps are found in all Tees authorities Stockton on Tees is the largest of all at 14.5 years) and the gap is larger than that for Newcastle and Northumberland.

20.4% of the gap due to deaths from heart disease and stroke, followed by deaths from injury, poisoning or suicide.

Females


Line graph titled 'Inequalities in life expectancy at birth (Female, 3 year range),' showing data for England, North East region, and North Tyneside from 2010-12 to 2018-20. The y-axis represents life expectancy in years. North Tyneside's life expectancy fluctuates, generally lower than the North East region but higher than England.

The gap is 9.9 years for females lowest since 2015-17 when it was 11.2 years. Similar to the NE value (10 years) and similar to Northumberland. Stockton has the biggest gap (13.9 years). 

The largest contributors are deaths from heart disease and stroke, cancer and COPD.

What conditions contribute to this gap?

Higher mortality rates (causes of death) in more deprived areas from heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic lower respiratory diseases account for around a third of the total gap in life expectancy for both sexes.

Smoking and obesity are the main risk factors for these diseases.

Although smoking prevalence in England has declined, people in the more deprived areas are still more likely to smoke than people in the least deprived areas.