Life expectancy at birth in Aran-Bidgol region, Iran, 2012: A study based on corrected Health Houses data

Background and aims: Life expectancy is one of the most important indicators of health and well-being of a society. Since it is claimed that in Aran-Bidgol region, center of Iran, life expectancy is higher than the average of the country, this study was designed. Methods: During a cross-sectional study, population and mortality data of Kashan University of Medical Sciences (KAUMS) in 2011 were used for calculating life expectancy. Brass Growth-Balance method was used to adjustmortality data with over 5 years old and to correct under reporting of deaths. Completeness and coverage of death registration data and the correction factor were calculated. Finally, anadjustedlife table for males and females was calculated separately. Microsoft Excel 2007 was used for calculations. Results: Population of Aran-Bidgol was 93571 in 2012 based on KAUMS data. Among the total population, 47331 (50.6%) were males. Number of registered deaths was 479 [280 male (58.4%)]. Completeness of the death registration data was found to be %74.9 for males and %70.1 for females. Correction factor (K) for adjustment of reported death was calculated to be 1.33 and 1.42 for males and females respectively. Adjusted life expectancy at birth for males and females was 71.3 and 76.5 years respectively. Conclusion: Although adjusted life expectancy for females in our study was to some extent more than the average life expectancy of Iranian women, but this indicator was slightly lower in men. Generally, it seems that there is no considerable difference between life expectancy of Aran-Bidgol population and national average life expectancy.