Alcohol-related Deaths

Rates rise since 1990's

The alcohol-related death rate in the UK increased from 6.9 per 100,000 population in 1991 to 12.9 in 2005. The number of alcohol-related deaths has more than doubled from 4,144 in 1991 to 8,386 in 2005. These figures are based on a harmonised definition of alcohol-related deaths that has been agreed across the UK. See Notes below for details.

Death rates are much higher for males than females and the gap between the sexes has widened in recent years. In 2005 the male death rate, at 17.9 deaths per 100,000 population, was more than twice the rate for females (8.3 deaths per 100,000) and males accounted for two thirds of the total number of deaths.

For men the death rates in all age groups increased between 1991 and 2005. The biggest increase was for men aged 35-54. Rates in this age group more than doubled between 1991 and 2005, from 13.4 to 29.9 deaths per 100,000. However the highest rates in each year were for men aged 55-74. In 2005 the rate in this age group was 43.4 per 100,000.

The death rates by age group for females were consistently lower than rates for males, however the trends showed a broadly similar pattern by age. The death rate for women aged 35-54 nearly doubled between 1991 and 2005, from 7.2 to 14.2 per 100,000 population, a larger increase than the rate for women in any other age group. The highest rates in each year were for the age group 55-74 however. In 2005 there were 19.2 alcohol-related deaths per 100,000 population for women in this age group.

Article Courtesy of http://www.statistics.gov.uk Published on 7 November 2006 at 9:30 am