Study details premature deaths after excessive alcohol use pre-pandemic, especially in the young.
One out of every eight deaths in Americans ages 20 to 64 resulted from drinking too much alcohol, according to a U.S. population-based study.
Nationally, 12.9% of total deaths per year among adults in this age group were attributed to excessive alcohol consumption from 2015 to 2019, and that number rose to 20.3% of total deaths per year when restricted to people ages 20 to 49, reported Marissa Esser, PhD, MPH, of the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues.
One out of every eight deaths in Americans ages 20 to 64 resulted from drinking too much alcohol, according to a U.S. population-based study.
Nationally, 12.9% of total deaths per year among adults in this age group were attributed to excessive alcohol consumption from 2015 to 2019, and that number rose to 20.3% of total deaths per year when restricted to people ages 20 to 49, reported Marissa Esser, PhD, MPH, of the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues.
Alcohol-attributed deaths ranged from 9.3% in Mississippi to 21.7% in New Mexico and were more common among men than women (15% vs 9.4%), the authors wrote in JAMA Network Open.
“These premature deaths could be reduced through increased implementation of evidence-based alcohol policies (e.g., increasing alcohol taxes, regulating alcohol outlet density), and alcohol screening and brief intervention,” the authors concluded.
Alcohol consumption remains a leading preventable cause of premature death, with rates rising for alcoholic liver disease among young adults up to age 64, Esser’s group noted. A prior CDC report from 2006 to 2019 attributed one in 10 deaths to excessive alcohol consumption among adults ages 20 to 64, but it was largely based on self-reported data without consideration of per capita alcohol sales.
“Compared with 2019, death rates involving alcohol as an underlying or contributing cause of death increased during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, including among adults aged 20 to 64 years,” Esser’s group wrote. “Therefore, the proportion of deaths due to excessive drinking among total deaths might be higher than reported in this study.”