Deaths Due to Alcohol
There’s no value in alarmism. But the truth is that the statistics and news are not good and, ultimately, the statistics don’t lie.
Nearly one-million Americans died from alcohol-related causes between 1999 and 2017 – and the 2007 stats are more than double those of 1999.
In fact, the statistics are especially bad for women of all ages – with the largest increase among white women - and people middle-aged and older. More than 18,000 women died from alcohol related injuries and illnesses in 2017 compared with 7,662 in 1999.
Only cigarettes are deadlier than alcohol – with more than 480,000 smoking related deaths each year.
In early 2020, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported that nearly one-million Americans died of alcohol-related causes between 1999 and 2017 – a 51 percent increase overall in that time period, taking into account population growth. The results also reflected a 47% increase of emergency department visits lined to alcohol between 2006 and 2014.
NIAA researchers found that rates of death involving alcohol increased more for women (85%) than for men (35%) during the 18-year period covered in the study – narrowing the once large differences in alcohol use and harms between males and females. Researchers from NIAA, a division of the National Institutes of Health, found that the number of death certificates mentioning alcohol more than double from 35,914 in 1999 to 72,558 in 2017, when alcohol played a role in 2.6% of deaths in the U.S.
While over the course of the period studied alcohol-related deaths were increasing among people in almost all age, racial and ethnic groups, the greatest increase overtime in alcohol related deaths occurred in the 25-35 age group, people 45-75 had highest rates of alcohol related deaths. “Alcohol is a growing women’s health issue,” reported NIAA Director Dr. George F. Koob. “The rapid increase in deaths involving alcohol among women is troubling and parallels the increases in alcohol consumption among women over the past few decades.”
The NIAA authors reported that because this newest study examined death certificates only, the actual number of alcohol-related deaths may far exceed the 2017 rate of 72,558 determined by the authors. “Taken together the findings of this study and others suggests that alcohol-related harms are increasing at multiple levels – from ED [Emergency Department] visits and hospitalizations to deaths. We know that the contribution of alcohol often fails to make it onto death certificates.”
The new findings appear contradicted by reports that teenage drinking overall has been dropping for years, although the gap in alcohol use/abuse between teenage boys and girls has narrowed. Tenth grade girls are just as likely to drink as boys. As baby boomers are aging, the health effects of chronic alcohol use have become more apparent. In addition, increased death rates may also reflect the on-going opioid crisis and the combination of alcohol and opioids and other drugs.
The report indicated a 10.1% increase in the prevalence of drinking and a 23.3% increase in binge drinking among women.
In 2017, according to the researchers, 70.1% of the U.S. population 18 and older consumed approximately 3.6 gallons of pure alcohol – about 2.1 standard daily drinks.
Tracking alcohol-related deaths is difficult because a certificate may be issued before a physician can recognize that alcohol was involved. However, a 2014 study found only one in six certificates recording death as a result of drunk driving listed alcohol as a contributor.
Koob called the NIAA report “a wake-up call to the growing threat alcohol poses to public health.”