Alcohol Consumption and Harms Dashboard
2023/2024

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an update on the Wholly Attributable Alcohol Hospital Statistics and the Wholly Attributable Alcohol Mortality figures to include financial year 2023/24 and calendar year 2023 respectively. Please note that for this December 2024 release, the 2022/23 and 2023/24 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) rates analysis figures for Wholly Attributable Alcohol Hospital Statistics and Wholly Attributable Alcohol Mortality are based on 2021 SIMD mid-year population estimates. 2022 and 2023 SIMD mid-year population estimates produced by National Records of Scotland were not available at the time of publication. When these become available the relevant analysis will be rerun and if a significant impact on the 2022/23 or 2023/24 figures is seen a planned revision of published statistics will be undertaken. The Wholly Attributable Alcohol Hospital Statistics pages in this dashboard now replace the dashboard previously provided in the PHS Alcohol Related Hospital Statistics series of publications.

Main points

• In 2023/24, the European Age-sex standardised rate of wholly attributable alcohol hospital admissions to general acute hospitals was 548 per 100,000 population and was 3% higher than the rate in 2022/23 (532 per 100,000).
• In 2023/24, males (539 patients per 100,000 population) were two times more likely than females (233 patients per 100,000 population) to be admitted to hospitals for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol. During the same period, people in the most deprived areas (942 patients per 100,000 population), as measured by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, were six times more likely to be admitted to hospitals for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol than those in the least deprived areas (143 patients per 100,000 population).
• In 2023, the European Age-sex standardised rate of wholly attributable alcohol deaths was 22.6 per 100,000 population and was broadly the same as the rate in 2022 (22.5 per 100,000).
• In 2023, the mortality rate for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol in males (32 per 100,000 population) was two times higher than the rate observed in females (14 per 100,000 population). During the same period, the mortality rate for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol in people residing in the most deprived areas (54 per 100,000 population) was six times higher than for those residing in the least deprived areas (9 per 100,000 population).

Line graph of general acute hospitalisation rates for number of stays, number of patients, and number of new patients respectively by year.

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Wholly attributable alcohol hospitalisation rates, general acute hospitals, Scotland, 1981/82-2023/24

Background

Alcohol health harms can be characterised as those which are wholly, or partially, attributable to alcohol consumption. Harms which are directly, and entirely, related to alcohol consumption are referred to as wholly attributable i.e. they only occur due to alcohol consumption. This summary reports two types of hospital activity measures: continuous inpatient stays (referred to as ‘admissions’) and patients. Admissions are distinct alcohol-related hospital admissions which occur within a year. Patients refers to the number of unique people who have had at least one alcohol-related hospital admission during a particular year. Updates to Partially Attributable Alcohol Hospital Statistics and the Partially Attributable Alcohol Mortality figures, Consumption, Crime and Justice, and Neighbourhoods figures will be released in 2025.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be Spring 2025.