Ministry of Health: Life Expectancy in Iran is 74 Years

The head of the Elderly Health Department of the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education has announced that life expectancy in Iran is 74 years. According to a report on Thursday, November 20, by Tasnim News Agency, Mahin al-Sadat Azimi made this announcement at the first national conference on "Aging" at the medical school in Rasht. She stated, "Life expectancy in Iran has reached 74 years according to the latest census." In Iran, a census is conducted every five years, so it seems that the head of the Elderly Health Department is referring to the 2011 census. Azimi also added, "It is expected that this figure will increase in the 2016 census." She further stated that the "disability-free life expectancy" in the country is 64 years and emphasized that this requires "special attention to women in society." Based on a report from the World Health Organization, the proportion of elderly Iranians was 12% of the total population in 2015, 14% in 2020, and is projected to reach 31% in 34 years. She considered the projected figure of 31% to be "higher than the global and Asian average." Her statements come at a time when on May 18 of this year, Mohammad Ismail Motlaq, the director general of the Population, Family, and Schools Office of the Ministry of Health, announced that the "qualitative life expectancy rate" in Iran is 63 years. According to him, the "quantitative life expectancy" for women in Iran is 74 years and for men is 72.8 years. Motlaq added that according to the "planning of the Ministry of Health, this figure should reach 76 years for women and 74 years for men." According to global statistics, while life expectancy for both genders has increased from 65.3 years in 1990 to 71.5 years in 2013, the life expectancy among women is higher than that of men. As reported by Donya-e-Eqtesad newspaper last November, "if this trend continues, life expectancy for women will reach 85.3 years and for men 78.1 years by 2030." The report also states that life expectancy in Asia is reported to be between 62 to 80 years, with Iran at 73 years, seven years behind Japan, the leading country in Asia. Life expectancy is a statistical indicator that shows the average lifespan in a society, which has a direct relationship with the improvement of health and medical indicators. Therefore, this indicator is one of the measures of progress and backwardness of countries. The announcement of life expectancy rates in Iran comes at a time when the head of the Welfare Organization of Iran previously reported an increase in the number of elderly people abandoned in the streets without providing statistics, stating that "loneliness, isolation, and seclusion" among the elderly are on the rise. Anoushiravan Mohseni Bandpay announced in a press conference this October that in the past, we faced the phenomenon of "abandoned children" in the streets, and today we are facing the phenomenon of "abandoned elderly."