Alcohol, Analytics, Estonia, Health, Markets and Companies

Compared with the first nine months of 2016, mortality from illnesses directly caused by alcohol has dropped by 15.5% among men and by 10.5% among women, or altogether by 14.5%, spokespeople for the Ministry of Social Affairs said on Tuesday.

The decrease took place thanks to reduced mortality from alcoholic liver disease, which is the cause of death in half the cases.

Although the data is preliminary, it can be said already now that compared with last year the number of alcohol related deaths will be smaller by 10-15% this year, spokespeople for the ministry said.

According to the register of deaths, 52 fewer people died from an illness directly caused by alcohol during the first nine months of this year than in the corresponding period a year ago, the numbers being 359 and 307, respectively.

The number of crimes committed while drunk has decreased by the same degree. Where in the first ten months of 2016 crimes committed by drunk individuals numbered 3,337, in January-October this year the number of such crimes was 2,803, which represents a reduction of 16%.

The number of road accidents caused by drunk drivers dropped from 453 in the first ten months of 2016 to 423 in the same period of this year, and the number of accidents caused by DUI drivers in which one or several persons sustained injuries declined from 141 to 120.

The number of people injured in such accidents dropped by 32 - from 182 to 150.

In both years eight people lost their lives in accidents caused by a drunk driver between January and the end of October.

The same figures have been used by Minister of Health and Labor Jevgeni Ossinovski to defend the changes to alcohol policy undertaken at his initiative.

Full-year data on health damage caused by alcohol for 2017 will be published by the National Institute for Health Development in June 2018.