UK: Alcoholic liver deaths increased by 21% during the year of the pandemic

Increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic, particularly amongst heavy drinkers, is likely driving an unprecedented acceleration in alcoholic liver disease deaths.

Public Health England (PHE) has published the trends in alcohol consumption and harm since the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The findings show an increase in total alcohol-specific deaths, driven by an unprecedented annual increase in alcoholic liver disease deaths above levels seen pre-pandemic.

Despite pubs, clubs and restaurants closing for approximately 31 weeks during the national lockdowns, the total amount of alcohol released for sale (meaning that tax has been paid and it is available to be bought) during the pandemic was still similar to the pre-pandemic years which suggests people were drinking more at home.

Data from a consumer purchasing panel show that in shops and supermarkets just over 12.6 million extra litres of alcohol were sold in the financial year 2020 to 2021 compared to 2019 to 2020 (a 24.4% increase).

Those that typically bought the most alcohol pre-pandemic bought a lot more once the first lockdown happened. When adult buyers were split into 5 equal-sized groups based on their level of purchasing in the 2 years before the first lockdown, the heaviest buying group increased their buying by 5.3 million litres of alcohol compared to 2019 to 2020 (an increase of 14.3%).

The findings reflect the survey data published on PHE’s Wider Impacts of COVID-19 on Health (WICH) dashboard that also shows an increase in increasing and higher risk drinking following the first national lockdown. This was maintained over much of 2020, but from 2021 onwards shows signs of returning to levels more similar to before the pandemic.

Comparing March 2020 and March 2021, there was a 58.6% increase of people reporting that they are drinking at increasing and higher-risk levels (50 units a week for men, 35 units a week for women).

Other published reports analysing surveys suggest that it is those drinking the heaviest before the pandemic that is more likely to report increasing their drinking.

The increased consumption of alcohol during the pandemic has occurred alongside increases in deaths. Alcohol-specific deaths increased by 20.0% in 2020 (from 5,819 in 2019 to 6,983) and alcoholic liver disease accounted for just over 80.3% of all deaths in 2020. There was a rapid increase in the number of alcoholic liver deaths, rising by 20.8% between 2019 and 2020, compared to a rise of 2.9% between 2018 and 2019.

Other findings include:

deaths from mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol increased by 10.8% between 2019 and 2020 (compared to a 1.1% increase between 2018 and 2019), but hospital admissions were down
deaths from alcohol poisoning increased by 15.4% between 2019 and 2020 (compared to a decrease of 4.5% between 2018 and 2019), but hospital admissions were down
33.0% of all alcohol-specific deaths occurred in the most deprived 20%
the North East has the biggest increase in death rate out of all regions, reaching a peak rate of 28.4 deaths per 100,000 population in July 2020 (79.7% higher than the baseline rate in 2018 and 2019 combined)
the rate of unplanned hospital admissions per 100,000 population for the alcoholic liver disease increased by 3.2% between 2019 and 2020, though the rate of total alcohol-specific admissions decreased by 3.2% (which mirrors the direction of all hospital admissions irrespective of the cause

Source: UK