Excessive alcohol use contributed to one in eight deaths among U.S. adults from 2015 to 2019, with rates even higher among younger adults, according to a new CDC study published in JAMA Network Open.

Excessive alcohol use is a significant cause of deaths in the US

For the study, CDC researchers examined data from 2,089,287 participants who responded to alcohol consumption surveys through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System between 2015 and 2019. To account for potential underreporting, the researchers adjusted the mean daily alcohol consumption to 73% of national per capita alcohol sales.

In addition, CDC's alcohol-related disease impact application was used to define deaths fully or partially attributed to alcohol for 58 causes, and mortality data was collected from the National Vital Statistics System's WONDER database.

In total, 140,557 mean annual deaths, or 5% of total deaths nationally, were attributed to excessive alcohol use. Of these deaths, 89,697, or almost two-thirds, occurred among individuals ages 20 to 64.

Nationally, 12.9% of all deaths per year among adults ages 20 to 64 from 2015 to 2019 were due to excessive alcohol use. This number grew even higher to 20.3% of all deaths among individuals ages 20 to 49.

In general, younger age groups were more likely to experience death from excessive alcohol use than older age groups. The highest proportion of alcohol related deaths (25.4%) occurred among individuals ages 20 to 34.

In addition, men were more likely than women to die from excessive alcohol use. Fifteen percent of all deaths among men ages 20 to 64 were due to excessive alcohol use compared to 9.4% of deaths among women in the same age group.

When it came to the leading causes of alcohol-attributable deaths, there was variance by age group, but not by gender. Among individuals ages 20 to 34, the three leading causes of alcohol-related deaths were other poisonings, motor vehicle crashes, and homicide. In comparison, the leading causes for those ages 35 to 49 were other poisonings, alcoholic liver disease, and motor vehicle crashes.

The researchers also compared alcohol-related deaths across all 50 U.S. states, with New Mexico having the highest rate of alcohol-related deaths at 21.7% and Mississippi having the lowest at 9.3%.

Commentary

Gordon Smith, a professor of epidemiology at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study, said that even after decades of study alcohol, he was surprised at the sheer magnitude of deaths attributed to it.

"I knew it was a big problem, but I think it was important to see just how much of a problem it is," Smith said.

According to Marissa Esser, a health scientist at CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and one of the study's authors, alcohol-related deaths are "really affecting adults in the prime of their life."

Because so many alcohol-related deaths occurred among working-age people, there was also a significant impact on economic productivity, Esser added.

Although the current study only covered pre-pandemic years, other research has shown that alcohol use and alcohol-related deaths have only increased during the pandemic.

For example, a study from Rand Corporation found that drinking among U.S. adults increased by 14% during the first year of the pandemic. Separately, a study from researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that alcohol-related deaths increased by roughly 25% from 2019 to 2020.

Going forward, the study's authors recommend several ways to potentially reduce alcohol-related deaths in the United States.

"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 wrote. (Hamza, MedPage Today, 11/1; O'Connell-Domenech, The Hill, 11/2; Alcorn, New York Times, 11/1; Esser et al., JAMA Network Open, 11/1)