The average life expectancy of Taiwanese last year was 80 years, a reduction of 0.2 years compared with the year before, which was likely caused by last year’s deadly cold fronts, Ministry of the Interior statistics showed.
Data from the ministry showed that the average life expectancy of Taiwanese men and women is 76.8 and 83.4 years respectively; on average, their life spans are longer than those in China, Malaysia and the US, but shorter than those in Japan and Norway.
The statistical reason for last year’s shortening of the average life expectancy, which occurred irrespective of sex, was the greater-than-usual number of deaths — 172,829 people — an increase of 9,007 from 2015, the ministry said.
Roughly 6,000 of the deaths occurred from January to March, a period when the nation was experiencing powerful cold fronts, it said.
This correlation makes exceptionally poor weather the plausible explanation for the decline in life expectancy, the ministry said, adding that last year the nation’s death rate was 7.35 per 1,000, an increase of 0.37 per 1,000 from 2015.
The total number of deaths, the death rate and the increase in the death rate last year shattered 10-year records, the ministry said.
The long-term trend of the nation’s average life expectancy continues to show positive growth, a result of the National Health Insurance, improving hospitals and higher standards of living, the ministry said.
Overall, the average life expectancy is longer for both sexes in northern Taiwan and lower in the south, the ministry said.
The average life expectancy of Taipei residents — 83.36 years — is the highest of the nation’s six special municipalities, followed by that of New Taipei City residents (81.02), while Kaohsiung’s is the lowest (78.9), it said.
In the nation’s remaining administrative divisions, Hsinchu City residents have the longest average life expectancy (80.81 years) and Taitung’s residents have the shortest (75.05), the ministry said.
Taitung County’s average life expectancy is five years shorter than the national average and there are several plausible explanations for the shortfall, including less transportation infrastructure, fewer medical resources and lifestyle differences, the ministry said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching