THERE was a slight fall in the total number of alcohol-related deaths in the North-East in 2011 compared to the previous year, but the death rate for women increased slightly.

New figures from the Office of National Statistics show that 461 men and women died from alcohol-related causes in the North-East in 2011 compared with 469 in the previous year.

This was in line with a small national fall in alcohol-related deaths from 8,790 in 2010 to 8,748 in 2011.

But the North-East was still one of the two English regions with the highest rate of deaths from liver-related disease.

The alcohol-related deaths rate per 100,000 of the population was highest in the North-West with the North-East a close runner-up. The lowest death rates in recent years have tended to be in the East of England.

In 2011 the death rate for alcohol-related disease among North-East men fell to 21.5 per 100,000 compared to the previous years figure of 22.6 per cent. In total 303 men died in the North-East in 2011 compared to 314 the previous year.

But the death-rate for alcohol-related disease among North-East women went up slightly from 10.2 per 100,000 in 2010 to 10.4 in 2011. In total 158 North-East women died in 2011 compared to 155 in the previous year.

Nationally, the figures show that males aged 30 and over are significantly more likely than females to die of alcohol-related causes.

More than 66 per cent of all alcohol-related deaths in the UK in 2011 were among males.

Alcohol-related death rates were highest for those aged 55 to 50 and lowest for those under 30.