Alcohol consumption and harms dashboard

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an annual update on the Wholly Attributable Alcohol Hospital Statistics and the Wholly Attributable Alcohol Mortality figures to include financial year 2024/25 and calendar year 2024 respectively. 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 2024/25, the European Age-sex Standardised Rate (EASR) of admissions to general acute hospitals for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol was 494 per 100,000 population and was 10% lower than the rate in 2023/24 (548 per 100,000 population).
• In 2024/25, males (489 patients per 100,000 population) were over two times more likely than females (213 patients per 100,000 population) to be admitted to hospitals (general acute or psychiatric) for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol. During the same period, people in the most deprived areas (848 patients per 100,000 population), as measured by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivations (SIMD), were over six times more likely to be admitted to hospitals for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol than those in the least deprived areas (123 patients per 100,000 population).
• In 2024, the EASR of wholly attributable alcohol deaths was 20.8 per 100,000 population and was 7% lower than the rate in 2023 (22.4 per 100,000 population).
• In 2024, the mortality rate for conditions wholly attributable to alcohol in males (30 per 100,000 population) was over two times higher than the rate observed in females (13 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 (45 per 100,000 population) was over five times higher than for those residing in the least deprived areas (8 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, 1981/82-2024/25

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 updated in future releases.

Please note that for this January 2026 release, the 2023/24 and 2024/25 SIMD rates analysis figures for Wholly Attributable Alcohol Hospital Statistics and Wholly Attributable Alcohol Mortality are based on 2022 SIMD mid-year population estimates. 2023 and 2024 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 2023/24 or 2024/25 figures is seen a planned revision of published statistics will be undertaken.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be Summer 2026.