Malta recorded the highest number of healthy life years in 2018 for women, (73.4 years), followed by Sweden (72.0 years), figires published by Eurostat show.

Sweden (73.7 years) came first in the men's category, followed by Malta (71.9 years).

Latvia had the lowest number of health life years for women (53.7 years) and men (51.0 years).

The number of healthy life years at birth was higher for women than for men in 19 of the EU member states, with the difference between the sexes generally small. In five EU Member States, the gap was more than two years; Poland (+3.8 years), Bulgaria (+3.6 years), Lithuania (+2.8 years), Latvia (+2.7 years) and Estonia (+2.3 years).

In seven EU member states, the number of health life years for women was lower than for men. The largest differences were noted in the Netherlands (-3.9 years), Denmark (-3.4 years) and Finland (-3.1 years).