Revising life expectancy index to explain its consistency to other vital indices in Iran

Introduction: The indicator of life expectancy at bird along with per capita income and literacy indicators in the annual human development reports are used for comparison and ranking of countries. This has increased the interest in life expectancy indicator in national researches and for health policy assessments. The independent nature of life expectancy calculation from other health indicators has caused inconsistency between the life expectancy indicator and the results from health policies and plans. Method: This is a statistical-analytic study to provide statistical-regression correlation between life expectancy indicators in the Iranian provinces in 2006 and the health indicators of natural growth rate of population, crude birth and death rates, fertility rate, and under 5 age infant death rate in the provinces in 2009, introducing the revised indicator of life expectancy at bird for the impacts of the other health indicators. Results: The revised indicator of life expectancy at bird shows that provinces’ ranking in 2006 have changed considerably in 2009 as a result of the effects of health indicator changes. This has been aroused from health policies for improvements in health indicators in the provinces that had ranking progress, and hence, for affecting life expectancy in those provinces. Conclusion: The indicator of life expectancy is resulted from life table contents that are almost independent from other health indicators. Such indicators are used for health targeting and in health policies and plans. This study, for the first time, has shown the effects of common health indicators on life expectancy indicator, introducing a statistical-regression correlation between the two indicators.