Life expectancy in Taiwan increases to 81.27 years

Taiwan’s life expectancy reached 81.27 years, up from 80.77 years a year earlier, with cancer remaining the leading cause of death for the 44th consecutive year, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday.

Various types of cancer accounted for 54,838 deaths last year, or 27.48 percent of all deaths, the ministry said in a statement.

Life expectancy would have been 3.7 years more, or 84.97 years, if cancer deaths were excluded, it said.

Source: Ministry of the Interior

Life expectancy was calculated after excluding deaths from each of the 10 leading causes of death and compared with the overall average, it said, adding that the greater the difference, the greater the effect of the cause of death on life expectancy.

The 10 leading causes of death in Taiwan last year were cancers, heart disease, pneumonia, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, hypertensive diseases, accidents, nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis, chronic lower respiratory diseases and suicide, Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed.

Excluding deaths from heart disease and pneumonia raised life expectancy by 1.54 years and 1.13 years respectively, the interior ministry said.

The gap between life expectancy and the figure calculated excluding cancer deaths narrowed from 4.1 years in 2015 to 3.7 last year, suggesting that cancer’s impact on life expectancy had eased slightly, it said.

Men lost more years of life than women to most of the 10 leading causes of death last year, except for diabetes, hypertensive diseases and kidney diseases, it said.

Men lost 0.75 years of life expectancy to accidents, compared with 0.36 years for women, the statement said.

The differences might be related to occupation, physiological factors, diet and healthcare, or lifestyle, it said.

The data help show how different causes of death affect life expectancy, it said.

More information is available on the interior ministry’s Web site in the “Statistics” section.