Deaths from alcohol misuse in NI are at their highest ever

The number of deaths in Northern Ireland from alcohol misuse has hit a record high.

New figures show that a total of 336 people died here in 2019 from alcohol-specific causes

Michael Owen, the Public Health Agency’s Regional lead for Drugs and Alcohol, said it was a worrying problem

“We need people to remember that alcohol is a powerful drug and drinking too much can have a serious impact on our health and mental well-being,” he said

The NISRA stats show a rise in deaths of more than third from 10 years ago while there were 52 less deaths in 2018

Of the latest total, 126 of the deaths were female which is the highest number ever recorded.

Alcohol-specific deaths (that is, deaths resulting from health conditions that are a direct consequence of alcohol misuse), account for approximately 2% of all deaths registered each year.

The figures also show that between 2018 and 2019, the alcohol-specific mortality rate increased for both males and females.

The rate for males increased from 21.2 per 100,000 males to 22.5; for females, the equivalent rate rose from 9.2 per 100,000 females to 13.1. In 2019, 210 (62.5%) alcohol-specific deaths were males and 126 (37.5%) were females. This is the highest annual number of female alcohol-specific deaths recorded in Northern Ireland.

NISRA said that looking at trends over time, the majority of those who died with alcohol-specific underlying causes each year since 2009 have been in the 45-54 and 55-64 age groups, together accounting for between 59.2% and 68.5% of all alcohol-specific deaths each year. In recent years, the proportion of those who died from alcohol-specific causes that are aged 55-64 has increased; in 2019, this age group accounted for over a third of such deaths (35.4%), while those aged 45-54 accounted for 27.1% of the total.

Looking at the most recent five years (2015 to 2019), there are notably higher numbers of alcohol-specific deaths in areas of higher deprivation across Northern Ireland, with the death rate in the most deprived areas (30.3 deaths per 100,000 population) being over three times higher than that in the least deprived areas