ISLAMABAD: A local research group – Research and Development Solutions (RADS) – has developed a more reliable way of calculating Pakistan’s health performance for the Human Development Index (HDI), producing district-level life expectancy estimates that could sharpen policy decisions across the country.
RADS said it had moved beyond earlier methods that relied on infant mortality rates from the Pakistan Demographic Survey (PDS), which is carried out only occasionally, making long-term tracking difficult.
Instead, RADS’ researcher Zainab Bibi and Aisha Irum designed the new approach that uses life expectancy as the core health indicator.
The estimates draw on data from the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM), which is available more regularly.
To build the model, the research group trained a Gradient Boosting algorithm on 41 years of World Development Indicators from multiple countries, using life expectancy as the target.
They then harmonised PSLM indicators with global predictors, creating proxies where needed, and processed PSLM microdata to generate district-level metrics.
The resulting life expectancy estimates were validated against international benchmarks.
life expectancy across Pakistan
The findings, visualised in a district-level map, highlight wide disparities in life expectancy across Pakistan.
Life expectancy was recorded at 71–73 years in districts such as Chitral, Islamabad, Khushab, Khanewal, and parts of Karachi, while it dropped to barely 60 years in several districts of Balochistan, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Jaffarabad, Kashmore, and North Waziristan.
RADS said the method offers a scalable, locally relevant, and evidence-based tool for measuring health outcomes.
By making the health component of HDI more robust, the organisation argued, Pakistan could better track progress and design policies that respond to ground realities.
The new method is a step towards data-driven planning at a time when Pakistan faces mounting challenges in public health and human development.