Definition of exposure variablesThe primary exposure was an alcohol-related emergency admission. An alcohol-related admission was defined as the first emergency admission in the study period with an alcohol-relatedICD-10 code populating one of the first three coding positions in the admission record [10].We defined an alcohol-related ICD-10 code as being ‘wholly attributable’ to alcohol consumption [10] and categorised them into clinical groups of interest based on the ICD-10 sections of(1) Mental and behavioural disorders related to alcohol (2) Toxic effects of alcohol & poisoning by alcohol and (3) Diseases of the digestive system, encounters with alcohol services or dueto alcohol use, and ‘other’ (Table 1). If there was no diagnostic code in the first three positions,for example where symptoms or contact with services were coded as the reason for admission,then a diagnostic alcohol code when present in the 4th position was included in the definition.