Drug-Related Deaths

Revision notice 30 June 2022: Drug-related deaths and drug-misuse deaths in 2020 have been revised to reflect the findings of the review of suicide statistics and additional quality assurance of archived data. Revisions to already published data are minimal with the exception of ASMRs for drug-misuse deaths by deprivation quintile where a coding error was detected and corrected. The revised tables also include additional information on drug-related and drug-misuse deaths by ICD 10 code.

There are two standard definitions associated with drug-related mortality: 

Drug-Related Death

This is when the underlying cause of death recorded on the death certificate is drug poisoning, drug abuse or drug dependence.  These deaths can be identified solely through the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).  The current National Statistics definition and the ICD ninth (ICD-09) and ICD tenth (ICD-10) revision codes used to define drug-related deaths are given in Table 1.

The second definition is a subset of the definition above and relates to deaths due to; 

Drug-Misuse Death

These are deaths where the underlying cause is drug poisoning, drug abuse or drug dependence OR where any of the substances controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) are involved. Further details on this definition for ICD-10 codes are given in Table 2.

 Table 2: ICD10 codes relating to Drug-Misuse

* excluding alcohol, tobacco and volatile substances

 It should be noted that:

 1. This definition does not include every death which involved drugs, for example, transport accidents where the driver was under the influence of drugs are excluded.

2. Only deaths related to poisonings by drugs, medicaments and biological substances are included.  Poisonings by other types of chemicals are excluded.

NISRA publish a list of controlled drugs mentioned on death certificates in Northern Ireland.

Data

• 2010-2020 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2009-2019 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2008-2018 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2007-2017 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2006-2016 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2006-2015 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2004-2014 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2003-2013 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2002-2012 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths
• 2001-2011 Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths

Information Papers

• Drug-related Deaths in Northern Ireland: Socio-Demographic Analyses
• Drug Related Deaths, Northern Ireland: Information Paper