Life expectancy in B.C. lower in Interior and North than Metro Vancouver, StatCan finds

Life expectancy in B.C. is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, but there continues to be disparity among regions, according to new figures from Statistics Canada.

The figures show Metro Vancouver residents are living longer than residents on Vancouver Island and the Fraser Valley, while lifespan in the Interior and the North continues to be significantly lower than urban areas.

Between 2022 and 2024, B.C. residents had an average life expectancy of 82.1 years, according to the latest statistics released Friday. That is slightly up from 81.6 years in 2023, but not quite the 82.4 years before COVID hit the province in 2020.

Women are still living longer than men in B.C., with an average of 84.7 years, compared with 79.5 years.

Richmond has the highest life expectancy in the province at 86.8 years, followed by the North Shore at 84.3 years, and the city of Vancouver at 83.3 years.

Women in Richmond are living the longest, at 89 years.

“It’s quite remarkable, and of course it’s likely a combination of things like access to health care, lifestyle and community,” said Dr. Michael Kobor, director of the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Aging at UBC.

Kobor spends a lot of time in Richmond and says, anecdotally, that he often sees groups of seniors hanging out together at coffee shops or at parks.

He said a sense of belonging contributes not just to lifespan but also to quality of life.

“It’s well studied that loneliness, especially in old age, is detrimental to health,” he said. “Having social connections may help you get out of bed in the morning, might give you purpose because you are going for a walk with friends or going to play chess or whatever.”

Experts now say social connection is equally as important to longevity as diet, lifestyle, exercise and sleep.

Kobor stressed that the StatCan figures measure lifespan not healthspan, which is declining. A study in the Lancet this summer found that the average number of years Canadians are spending in poor health is 13.7 years. This gap is the third largest in the world, after the U.S. at 14 years and Australia at 13.9 years.

“We are getting older, but a lot of that is spent in poor health,” he said, adding it is also important to remember these figures take an average of the whole population, so the numbers also don’t show how many people are living much longer than 82 years.

Kobor said more research needs to be done on why residents in B.C.’s Interior and North are, in some instances, living nearly a decade less than their big-city counterparts.

Data shows residents in the Interior Health Authority lived to 80.2 years on average to 2024, which ticked up from 79.9 years during the pandemic.

The Thompson-Cariboo region was notably lower at 78.8 years, as was the East Kootenay region at 79.5 years. These figures were largely unchanged from the previous statistics, but still lower than the pre-pandemic average of around 80 years.