Data published by Eurostat underlined that Latvian men have the briefest healthy lives of all, while Latvian women fare only slightly better with the second-briefiest healthy lives.
Latvia's average number of healthy life years (including both sexes) was 54.2 years. The next-worst is Denmark on 55.9 years and Slovakia on 57.3 years.
As far as Baltic neighbors are concerned, Estonia is on 59.3 years, Lithuania manages 60.3 years and the Finns last for 57.9 years.
In 2022, the number of healthy life years at birth in the EU was 62.6 years on average: 62.8 years for women and 62.4 years for men.
Life expectancy at birth for women in the EU was, on average, 5.4 years longer than that for men (83.3 years compared with 77.9 years). Healthy life years - free from activity limitations - represent 75% and 80% of the total life expectancy for women and men, respectively. Therefore, on average, men tend to spend a greater proportion of their somewhat shorter lives free from activity limitations.
Among the EU countries, Malta recorded the highest number of healthy life years at birth in 2022 for women (70.3 years), ahead of Bulgaria (68.9 years) and Slovenia (68.5 years).
In contrast, Denmark had the lowest number of healthy life years for women (54.6 years), followed by Latvia (55.4 years) and the Netherlands (56.3 years).
The highest number of healthy life years for men was also recorded in Malta (70.1), followed by Sweden (67.5) and Italy (67.1), while the lowest ones were found in Latvia (53.0 years), Slovakia (56.6 years) and Denmark (57.1 years).
Perhaps spending as many winters as possible in Malta would be a good idea.
