Official Statistics

Alcohol Profiles for England: short statistical commentary, December 2024

Published 3 December 2024

Applies to England

What’s new

New data has been added to the Alcohol Profile tool on the Fingertips platform. The following indicators have been updated and are available at local authority level as well as for England, the regions and various inequality groups:

• alcohol-specific mortality
• mortality from chronic liver disease
• under 75 mortality rate from alcoholic liver disease
• number of premises licensed to sell alcohol per square kilometre

Introduction

The Alcohol Profile brings together indicators related to alcohol, including alcohol-specific and alcohol-related mortality and hospital admissions. The indicators in the Alcohol Profile were selected following consultation with stakeholders and a review of the availability of routine data. The profile is part of a series of products by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) that provide local data alongside national comparisons to support local health improvement.

Mortality rates produced for the Alcohol Profile are directly age-standardised rates, which adjust for differences in the age structure of the population between areas and population groups. To see how mortality from alcohol-related causes compares with other causes of death please view the Mortality Profile.

Main findings

This update shows:

In 2023, there were 8,274 alcohol-specific deaths (deaths wholly due to alcohol) in England, which was an increase of 63.8% from 5,050 deaths in 2006 and a 4.6% increase since 2022.

This equates to a rate of 15.0 per 100,000 population in 2023. This was the highest rate for alcohol-specific mortality since the start of the data series in 2006 (10.7 per 100,000).

Figure 1: age-standardised alcohol-specific mortality rate per 100,000 population (all ages): single year, England, 2006 to 2023

Source: calculated by OHID Population Health Analysis (PHA) team from Office for National Statistics (ONS) death registration data and ONS mid-year population estimates.

In 2023, the alcohol-specific mortality rate was highest in the North East region (25.7 per 100,000 population) and lowest in the East of England region (11.5). The mortality rate at upper tier local authority level varied from 31.4 in Sunderland to 6.7 (per 100,000 population) in Hackney.

The rate of alcohol-specific mortality in the most deprived tenth of upper tier local authority areas was double the rate in the least deprived tenth (20.9 and 9.8 per 100,000 population respectively).

The average (mean) age of death for alcohol-specific mortality in England in 2023 was 57.2 years. The average age of death for all causes in England in 2023 was around 20 years longer at 78.0 years.

Alcohol consumption is an important cause of liver disease. The mortality rate for chronic liver disease in England was 15.0 per 100,000 population in 2023 and was also the highest rate since the start of the data series in 2006 (12.6 per 100,000). The inequalities seen in the mortality rate for chronic liver disease are similar to alcohol-specific mortality.

Definitions

Alcohol-specific mortality: deaths from conditions wholly caused by alcohol. This definition is also used by the ONS in their annual UK data release.

The Alcohol Profile data tool helps local areas assess alcohol-related harm and monitor the progress of efforts to reduce this.

View the Alcohol Profile tool.

Responsible statistician, product lead: Mark Cook.

For queries relating to this publication, contact: profilefeedback@dhsc.gov.uk.