Alcohol misuse can be directly attributed to deaths from certain types of disease such as alcoholic liver disease. This section presents information on the number of deaths that are specific to alcohol consumption.
The data source is the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which uses the new National Statistics (NS) definition of alcohol-specific deaths1. This definition only includes conditions where each death is a direct consequence of alcohol misuse. The definition is primarily based on chronic (longer-term) conditions associated with continued misuse of alcohol and, to a lesser extent, acute (immediate) conditions.
It is a change to previous NS definition of alcohol-related deaths. Alcohol-related deaths also included diseases where only a proportion of the deaths were caused by alcohol (that is, partially-attributable deaths), such as cancers of the mouth, oesophagus and liver.
Public Health England (PHE) produces estimates for both alcohol-specific and alcohol-related deaths at local authority level2. Alcohol-related estimates, which include partially attributable deaths, are higher than the ONS figures for alcoholic specific deaths
More information on the impact of the new definition is available on the ONS website3