Bar workers more likely to die of drinking

LONDON, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Bar staff, young female office workers and merchant sailors were most likely to die of alcohol-related causes, a British study found.

The study, published in HealthStatistics Quarterly by the Office for National Statistics, found men who worked as farmers and drivers, and women who worked with children, were the least likely to die from drinking too much.

There were 16,666 alcohol related deaths in Britain from 2001 to 2005, Britain's Telegraph newspaper said Thursday.

Figures released earlier this year said deaths specifically due to alcohol have doubled in the last 10 years, the newspaper said.

"What is important is whether the occupation has a drinking culture, the availability of alcohol and the toleration of drinking at work," Martin Plant, an alcohol addiction expert from the University of the West of England, told the newspaper.

Doctors -- who were counted among professionals most likely to die from drinking in the 1960s, '70s and '80s -- are now among the least likely to die from alcohol use. The report attributes the decrease to a change in the medical working culture, and the influx of more medics from ethnic minority backgrounds.