1.1 This paper summarises the Registrar General for Scotland’s life expectancy figures for the period 2004-2006 for administrative areas within Scotland and compares these with results for 1994-1996. For the first time, life expectancy at birth for all people is presented in this report, although the analysis concentrates on male and female as in previous reports. It also reports on the new NHS board areas created following the dissolution of NHS Argyll & Clyde on 31st March 2006. NHS Argyll & Clyde was split between Greater Glasgow and Highland resulting in two new NHS board areas named Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Highland. Figures have also been provided for the old NHS board areas for completeness and for comparison purposes. See Section 5 for more information about the dissolution of Argyll & Clyde NHS board and Section 3.3 for more information about the reliability of the results.
1.2 The results for 2004-2006, given in Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3, have been ranked for ease of presentation. For council areas, this means that "1" is the area with the highest life expectancy and "32" the lowest. Similarly, NHS boards areas are ranked 1 to 14.
1.3 The figures quoted in this publication are all period life expectancies. Period life expectancies are calculated using age specific mortality rates for a given period with no allowance for any later actual or projected future changes in mortality after that period. They are also based on revised population estimates published on 27 July 2007. These were revised following a review of methodology used by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). More information can be found on the GROS website: