As a public health issue, alcohol is known to lead to a range of acute and chronic health problems, many of which, at the worst end of the scale, will lead to premature mortality. A wide range of conditions are influenced by alcohol. There are acute effects, such as alcoholic poisoning, violence and accidents, as well as the more chronic effects, such as alcohol-induced pancreatitis, chronic liver disease and stomach cancer. The burden to the National Health Service (NHS) is large in terms of hospital treatment and treatment within primary care. However, the effects of alcohol are not just related to health and health services and the influence of alcohol on individuals in turn affects the population as a whole through loss of employment, economic capacity and community cohesion. In this wider context, alcohol negatively affects the wellbeing of both individuals and communities due to, for example, behavioural changes resulting in acts of violence, anti-social behaviour, accidents or crime, risky sexual activity leading to teenage conceptions and sexually transmitted infections, and truancy from school. Nevertheless, much economic development and inner city regeneration focuses to a large extent around leisure and entertainment, inevitably including alcohol. So, marketing and promotion by the alcohol industry, with the ultimate goal of increasing sales, all contribute to the UK economy, but at the same time, helps to perpetuate the increasing harms on the population that are illustrated in this report.

Published in June 2007, Safe. Sensible. Social: The next steps in the National Alcohol Strategy highlights progress since the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England (2004) and sets out a series of steps aimed at maintaining the Government’s ambition to continue to reduce the harms and costs of alcohol on the population in England. The strategy outlines a coordinated response across a wide range of areas including local communities, the police, local authorities, the NHS, voluntary organisations, the alcohol industry, the wider business community and the media.

The report,Indications of Public Health in the English Regions 8: Alcohol, produced alongside the national strategy, contains 84 separate measures (comprising 36 different indicators) relating to individual, community and population implications of alcohol use, with various measures of the effects this has on health and wellbeing, focusing on the nine English regions. Where possible, the situation in England has been put into a wider European context with comparators across the rest of the UK and other EU countries.

Figure 1. Summary of alcohol measures illustrated in the various sections of the Report Indications of Public Health in the English Regions 8: Alcohol. Figures here are annual totals for England attributable to alcohol (unless stated).