Women dyingyounger thananywhere in NI

According to the latest figures, which have been released by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS), the life expectancy of women at birth in the Foyle constituency was 80.1 years for the period 2010 and 2012.

In fact, local women are dying three-and-a-half years earlier than women in North Antrim, where the life expectancy estimate is 83.5 years.

To give a global comparison women from Costa Rica, Uruguay, Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Lebanon and Cuba could all, according to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) figures, expect to live longer than women from Londonderry.

Meanwhile, the life expectancy estimate for local men was 76.2 years, which was worse than anywhere apart from North Belfast (74.6 years) and West Belfast (74.1 years).

That’s also three-and-a-half years earlier than their counterparts just over the Glenshane in Mid Ulster, where the life expectancy at birth figure for 2010-12 was given as 79.7 years.

Londonderry men are therefore dying younger than men in Costa Rica, Israel, Qatar, Singapore and Slovenia.

The statistics, which make grim reading for people from the North West, were released in response to an Assembly Question tabled by SDLP MLA Alex Attwood.

They are taken from the DHSSPS Information and Analysis Directorate’s NI Health and Social Care Inequalities Monitoring System (HSCIMS).

According to the figures both men and women living in neighbouring constituencies can expect longer lives.

For example, in East Londonderry women can expect to live two-and-a-half years longer than women in Londonderry.

The life expectancy estimate for females in the Roe Valley is 82.4.

And in Limavady and Coleraine men can expect to live almost two years longer than in Londonderry.

The male life expectancy estimate is 78 years.

In West Tyrone where the estimate for women is 83.3 years women can expect to live almost three-and-half years more than women from Londonderry. Men from West Tyrone, where the male life expectancy is 78.5, can expect to live over two years longer than men from Londonderry. The Northern Ireland average life expectancy for women is given as 82.1 years. The life expectancy for men is given as 77.7 years.

Both figures leave Londonderry trailing well below the province-wide average.