Life expectancy for Indigenous people is improving, but closing the gap remains unacceptably slow

The article by Zhao and colleagues on life expectancy changes in the Northern Territory during 1999–2018 in this issue of the Journal¹ has major implications for Indigenous health policy makers and service providers across Australia. In their retrospective trend analysis, the authors found that life expectancy at birth increased more rapidly for Indigenous than non-Indigenous people (from 56.6 to 65.6 years for Indigenous men, and from 64.8 to 69.7 years for Indigenous women), and that the difference in life expectancy between the two groups declined (by 26% for men, 21% for women), but the gap nevertheless remained considerable (15.4 years for both sexes).