North-west men drink themselves to death

Men are dying from alcohol at twice the rate of women with blokes in the north-west of England at greatest risk. Latest statistics on alcohol-related deaths in England and Wales show that drink is more often the cause of death than ever before but with wide regional variations.

According to last week's data from the Office for National Statistics, alcohol-related deaths rose throughout the 1980s and 1990s. There were 6,580 such deaths in 2003 - up over 10% on 2001.

Men are far more likely to kill themselves in this way than women. In 2003, males accounted for almost two thirds of the total number of deaths. The male death rate, at 15.8 deaths per 100,000 population, was twice the rate for females (7.6 deaths per 100,000 population).

The regions with the highest rates of alcohol-related deaths were in the north west and north east of England. The lowest rates were in the east of England, the south west and the south east.

The difference is enormous. A man in the northwest is twice as likely to drink himself to death as a man in the east of England. The rate for the North West was almost double that for the East of England (15.1 and 7.7 deaths per 100,000 population respectively). The West Midlands, London and Wales also had rates which were above the average for England and Wales.

Of the ten local authorities with the highest alcohol-related death rates for males, five were in the north west, with the highest in Blackpool. The rate for males there was 43.9 deaths per 100,000 population, almost three times the national average.

Of the ten local authorities with the highest female death rates, six were in the north wes although the highest rate for females was found in Corby in the East Midlands (20.3 deaths per 100,000 population), almost three times the national average.

The full report for England and Wales is available free on the National Statistics website.