According to official statistics, the male alcoholism mortality rates increased 1.6 times (from 44 to 72.3 per 1000000 of population) and female mortality rates increased 2.3 times (from 7.5 to 17.5 per1000000 of population) in Russia from 1970 to 2005.Across the whole period the male alcoholism mortality rate was 4.8times higher than the female rates (51.3 vs.10.8 per 1000000) with a rates ratio of 5.9 in 1970 decreasin to 2.8 by the 2005.