Binge Drinking, Harmful Drinking Linked to U.S. Death Rates
Press Release
Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center
325 Ninth Avenue
Box 359960
Seattle, WA 98104
http://depts.washington.edu/hiprc/index.html
Binge drinking and harmful drinking, including both medium to high
levels of regular alcohol consumption, account for a substantial
number of deaths each year in the United States. Prevention of this
underlying cause of mortality must be a public health priority,
according to researchers at the University of Washington (UW) who
conducted the study.
"Mortality Attributable to Harmful Drinking in the United
States, 2000" was published in the July issue of the Journal
of Studies on Alcohol .
Although alcohol has been associated with death from a variety
of causes, there had been no recent studies on the numbers of deaths
in the U.S. attributable to harmful alcohol use. The investigators
estimated the prevalence of alcohol use from the Center for Disease
Control's (CDC) Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System and the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service's National Household Survey
on Drug Abuse.
An estimated 63,718 deaths were attributable to harmful drinking
in the U.S. in 2000. Of these deaths, 45,988 were to males (4 percent
of all deaths among males) and 17,730 were to females (1.5 percent
of all deaths among females).
Heavy episodic drinking (binge drinking) has been defined as five
or more drinks per occasion, with a drink equaling 10 grams of alcohol.
Motor vehicle crashes were the most frequent cause of death for
binge drinkers. Among men, the other common causes of death were
homicide, suicide, alcohol poisoning and drowning, and for women,
homicide, hemorrhagic stroke, alcohol poisoning and suicide.
For the purposes of this study, a medium level of regular drinking
was defined as 4-6 drinks a day for men and 2-4 drinks a day for
women, and a high level defined as more than 6 drinks for men and
more than 4 drinks for women. Alcohol liver cirrhosis, hemorrhagic
stroke, alcoholic psychoses and suicide were the most frequent causes
of death for these groups.
The method used by the UW investigators to estimate the number
of deaths attributable to harmful drinking is the same method that
the CDC has used to calculate deaths than can be attributed to smoking.
The study is the first to estimate the number of deaths in the U.S
attributable to alcohol since a CDC study in 1990 based on deaths
in 1987.
"While the number of deaths due to alcohol in our study, nearly
64,000, is considerably less than the 105,095 calculated by the
CDC for 1987, these deaths are still a cause for concern and a call
to action," says Dr. Frederick Rivara, a UW professor of pediatrics
and adjunct professor of epidemiology, and principal investigator
for the study. "In contrast to many other causes of death,
deaths from alcohol are due to preventable, high-risk behaviors.
Previous studies have shown that family- and community-based interventions
can have an impact on youth drinking, and brief interventions in
clinical settings have been shown to be effective in reducing harmful
drinking by adults. Research also shows that raising the taxes on
alcohol has the potential to reduce harmful drinking."
In addition to Rivara, the study was conducted by Michelle Garrison,
M.P.H., research consultant; Dr. Beth Ebel, assistant professor
of pediatrics; Carolyn McCarty, Ph.D., research assistant professor;
and Dr. Dimitri Christakis, associate professor of pediatrics; all
of the University of Washington.
Rivara FP; Garrison MM; Ebel B; McCarty CA; Christakis DA. Mortality
Attributable to Harmful Drinking in the United States, 2000. Journal
of Studies on Alcohol 65(4):530-536, 2004
For more information, please contact Larry Zalin at 206-744-9459
or zalin@u.washington.edu.
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