Britons have the worst life expectancy in Western Europe, a shocking new report reveals.
An analysis of life expectancy across the continent found that people born in the UK can now expect to live about 80.9 years on average.
This puts Britain behind the average of 81.5 years of life of the 27 EU countries and the worst in Western Europe, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report.
Switzerland has the highest life expectancy: the average Swiss lives to 84.2 years, three years longer than the average Briton. Spain followed closely with 84 years and Italy with 83.8 years.
The OECD report, which examined life expectancy in 39 European countries, ranked Britain 21st, losing out to countries such as Malta, Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.
Moldova recorded the lowest life expectancy at 73.3 years, followed by embattled Ukraine at 74.3 years and Georgia at 73.7 years.
The OECD report comes after the UK’s own Office for National Statistics (ONS) also reported a drop in life expectancy.
An ONS report last month found that men have lost six months of life and women three months since the Covid pandemic.
Boys born today in England are only expected to live to be 79 years old, while girls will live to be 83 years old on average, a decline from figures recorded in the pre-pandemic period.
Some analysts have attributed the drop to increased mortality from Covid deaths, while others have pointed to rising obesity rates and their impact on health.
OECD analysts also highlighted that average life expectancy across the EU had increased by one year since the last report published in 2022.
By contrast, life expectancy in Britain had only increased by six months in that same period.
The report also found that women’s life expectancy remains higher than men’s across the EU: women live an average of 5.3 years longer.
But researchers said the gap is narrowing.
Data from the UK suggested the gap in life expectancy was just four years, with women living almost 83 years compared to 79 for men.