Life expectancy in both Leicester and Leicestershire has fallen.

Babies born between 2021 and 2023 are now expected to live shorter lives than those born in the pre-pandemic years of 2017 to 2019, new data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show.

The biggest drop locally was for baby girls in the city, who are now expected to live 80.6 years compared to a previous expectation of 82.2 years. This is one of the largest decreases for females of all local authority areas in Great Britain, with just Na h-Eileanan Siar, in the Outer Hebrides, and Epsom and Ewell, in Surrey, seeing greater falls.

Leicester's female babies are also predicted to live between two and four years less than their Leicestershire counterparts. However, they are still anticipated to live much longer than male infants born in the city between 2021 and 2023.

Baby boys in Leicester are now expected to live just 76.45 years compared to 77.7 years for those born between 2017 and 2019. Again, their life expectancy is much lower than the Leicestershire cohort, with a difference of between three and four-and-a-half years.

Rob Howard, Leicester City Council director of public health, told the LDRS: "As the ONS itself highlights, the Coronavirus pandemic led to increased mortality during 2020 and 2021, and some impact remains in this latest life expectancy reporting period 2021 to 2023.

"The effects of the pandemic and the ongoing cost of living crisis have served to widen existing health inequalities.

"These can manifest as people living less long but can also lead to people living fewer of those years in good health. Addressing these unfair, unjust, and preventable inequalities lies at the heart of everything we do in public health."

He added: "This includes the establishment of our Community Wellbeing Champions programme to learn from and to empower our diverse communities across the city. Working with colleagues from health, social care and the community and voluntary sectors, we have also recently established a prevention and health inequalities steering group to focus on some specific areas where we feel we can make a real difference.

"These include increasing the uptake of childhood vaccinations, supporting those isolated with serious mental ill health, promoting healthy weight by creating healthy environments and promoting active travel, increasing the uptake of bowel cancer screening, and the early identification of people with high blood pressure."

People living in the city were among the hardest hit in the pandemic, having spent more time than any other area under the blanket of Covid-19 restrictions. On Monday, June 29, 2020, it was announced that the city would be put in its own lockdown, separate to the rest of the country, resulting in an extra 100 days of restrictions locally. The city saw 128,123 cases of the virus between the start of the pandemic and Monday, December 5, 2022, and 1,171 local lives were lost.

Elsewhere, the ONS data found that Harborough district has the highest life expectancy for both boys and girls locally – 81 years and 84.5 years respectively. But again, these have both fallen compared to the 2017 to 2019 cohort.

In fact, only one group of youngsters has seen an increase in life expectancy in the county. Boys in Oadby and Wigston born between 2021 and 2023 will live for 80.3 years, compared to 80 years previously.

Across Great Britain, the picture is similar, with most areas seeing a drop. Male life expectancy has dropped in four-fifths of Great Britain's council areas, while female life expectancy has dropped in seven out of 10 areas.

The stats also suggest a North-South divide when it comes to health outcomes. The 10 areas with the highest life expectancies at birth for both males and females were all in the south of England. The 10 areas with the shortest life expectancies for males were in Scotland, the north of England and Wales, while the areas where females can expect the shortest lifespan were mostly in Scotland.

For the first time since records began in 2001, Glasgow has been overtaken as the part of Great Britain with the lowest average life expectancy for males.

Blackpool now has that unwanted title, after the average life expectancy dropped to 73.1 years, lower than Glasgow (73.6 years). Glasgow has the lowest female life expectancy in Great Britain (78.3 years), however.

Greg Ceely, ONS head of population health monitoring, said the statistics suggest "we are yet to see a recovery from the decrease in life expectancy we saw during the pandemic". He added: "Our results continue to show a clear geographical divide."