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. 2021 Sep 9;13(9):3145.
doi: 10.3390/nu13093145.

The Global Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Premature Mortality and Health in 2016

Ivneet Sohi  1 , Ari Franklin  1 , Bethany Chrystoja  1   2   3 , Ashley Wettlaufer  1 , Jürgen Rehm  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8 , Kevin Shield  1   2   4
Affiliations

The Global Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Premature Mortality and Health in 2016

Ivneet Sohi et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

This study aimed to estimate the impact of alcohol use on mortality and health among people 69 years of age and younger in 2016. A comparative risk assessment approach was utilized, with population-attributable fractions being estimated by combining alcohol use data from the Global Information System on Alcohol and Health with corresponding relative risk estimates from meta-analyses. The mortality and health data were obtained from the Global Health Observatory. Among people 69 years of age and younger in 2016, 2.0 million deaths and 117.2 million Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost were attributable to alcohol consumption, representing 7.1% and 5.5% of all deaths and DALYs lost in that year, respectively. The leading causes of the burden of alcohol-attributable deaths were cirrhosis of the liver (457,000 deaths), road injuries (338,000 deaths), and tuberculosis (190,000 deaths). The numbers of premature deaths per 100,000 people were highest in Eastern Europe (155.8 deaths per 100,000), Central Europe (52.3 deaths per 100,000 people), and Western sub-Saharan Africa (48.7 deaths per 100,000). A large portion of the burden of disease caused by alcohol among people 69 years of age and younger is preventable through the implementation of cost-effective alcohol policies such as increases in taxation.

Keywords: alcohol; burden of disease; death; disability; global; infectious diseases; injuries; non-communicable diseases; policy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Alcohol-attributable deaths and disability adjusted life years (DALYs) lost by age.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Alcohol-attributable deaths and disability adjusted years of life lost globally in 2016 among people 0 to 69 years of age.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Alcohol-attributable deaths and disability adjusted life years (DALYs) lost among people 0 to 70 years of age by global burden of disease region.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Alcohol-attributable deaths and disability adjusted life years (DALYs) lost among people 0 to 70 years of age by human development index region.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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