Life expectancy in Taiwan last year hit a new high of 80.9 years after a decade of increasing steadily, the Ministry of the Interior said on Wednesday.
The average life expectancy for men was 77.7 and 84.2 for women, both records, the ministry said.
Over the past decade, life expectancy in Taiwan has been rising steadily from 79 in 2009 mainly because of improved healthcare, heightened awareness of food safety, an improved quality of life and the rising popularity of fitness programs, the ministry said.
The cities with the highest life expectancies last year were Taipei (83.86 years), New Taipei City (81.52), Hsinchu City (81.43), Taoyuan (81.09) and Taichung (80.83), ministry data showed.
Hualien and Taitung counties were at the bottom of the list, with average life expectancies of 77.06 and 76.33 years respectively, the data showed.
Western parts of the country most likely have a higher average life expectancy than eastern areas because of lifestyle factors and better access to medical resources, the ministry said.
However, the gap between eastern and western areas has narrowed over the past decade, it said, adding that Taitung County saw the biggest spike in life expectancy in Taiwan last year.
Taiwan’s crude death rate last year was 7.44 per 1,000 people, with 175,546 deaths recorded, the data showed.
That was an increase of 2,846 deaths from the previous year, when the crude death rate was 7.32 per 1,000 people, the data showed.
The standardized mortality ratio, which adjusts for a population’s age structure, was 408.2 per 100,000 people last year, a 1.6 percent decrease from the previous year, the data showed.
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