Deaths from conditions wholly attributable to alcohol have increased by 4.6% from 2022 to 2023, reaching the highest number for the fourth year in a row.
DHSC’s Alcohol Profile shows that 8,274 people died from alcohol-specific causes in England in 2023 (up from 7,912 the year before).
This is a 42% increase compared to 2019, before the pandemic. And compared to 2006, this is an increase of 64%.
The death rate is at an all-time high of 15 per 100,000 people:
The majority of these deaths are from alcohol-related liver disease. 5,984 people died prematurely (under 75) from the disease in 2023, a rise of 3.6% from 2022, and a shocking 93% rise compared to 2001.
On Bluesky, health economist Colin Angus said:
We modelled what we’d expect future mortality trends to look like given what we know about consumption changes and what’s happened is much worse than our worse case scenario.
As far as I can tell, it isn’t because consumption trends have continued to get worse. If anything they’ve returned somewhat towards pre-pandemic levels. Some unholy interaction of pandemic effects on drinking, shifting age profile of heavy drinkers and treatment services in lockdown.
Many other countries did see an increase in alcohol-specific deaths in 2020, but not as large as England (except perhaps the US) and many of those have at least begun to revert to pre-pandemic levels.