Objective To analyze the current status, hotspots, and development trends of research of health life expectancy in China and provide references for the future research.

Methods Using the search formula of SU=('Life Expectancy' & 'Expected Lifespan' & 'Average Lifespan'), related literatures published in the CNKI database before August 23, 2023 were selected to obtain the sample literature. Then, software CiteSpace was used to conduct visual analysis such as co-occurrence network analysis, keyword clustering, and keyword burst.

Results A total of 1 975 valid research articles were included in the study. Analysis revealed that the annual publication volume of literatures relate of core authors (92) of research of healthy life expectancy in China accounted for 33.58% of all researchers (274), and the proportion of literatures published by core authors (484) accounted for 24.51% of the total. Author collaboration groups had been formed at certain level, but core author groups had not yet emerged. There were 149 nodes and 74 connections among the institutions publishing literatures related to healthy life expectancy in China, with a network density of 0.0064. There were limited research collaborations among different institutions, and the concentration of research strength was not high. The five keywords of life expectancy (0.57), population aging (0.25), expected lifespan (0.19), mortality rate (0.18), and aging (0.11) have betweenness centrality values ≥0.1, making them key nodes in the co-occurrence of keywords.

Conclusion The study suggests to pay more attention to the research of healthy life expectancy, and future research should focus on regional study, complete life cycle, and healthy life expectancy in optimal health conditions.