The first Bulletin documented national and jurisdictional rates of deaths caused by hazardous/harmful alcohol consumption between 1990 and 1997. It was estimated that 3,290 Australians died from injury and disease caused by hazardous/harmful alcohol consumption in 1997 and that over 72,000 hospital admissions were caused by high-risk drinking. About 70% of all alcohol-caused deaths and hospitalisations occurred among males and an average of 19 years of life were lost to premature death. From 1990 to 1997 death rates declined by over 20% with most of the decline between 1990 and 1993.