Copyright © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Medical Council on Alcohol.
Invited Commentary
Alcohol-related deaths by occupation: what do data for england and wales in 2001–2005 tell us about doctors' mortality?
Mortality Statistics Team, Office for National Statistics, 1 Drummond Gate, London SW1V 2QQ, UK
Author to whom correspondence should be addresses: Mortality Statistics Team, Office for National Statistics, 1 Drummond Gate, London SW1V 2QQ, UK. E-mail: allan.baker@ons.gov.uk
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
Alcohol-related mortality for different occupations in England and Wales has long been monitored by the Office for National Statistics and its predecessor organizations. Staff at the General Register Office in the early 1890s sorted half a million paper death records into separate occupational groups, which were in turn classified by cause of death. The results of the consequent analyses, published in 1895, were the first comprehensive assessment of mortality from a range of causes for men in particular occupations (General Register Office, 1895
). From the wealth of results, we learn that mortality in publicans from alcoholism was seven times that of all working men, while deaths from liver disease were six and a half times higher. Mortality from alcoholism for workers in agriculture was, conversely, less than a third of that for men in all occupations.
Subsequent reports show some consistencies, including that the highest levels