Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

GBD 2016 Alcohol Collaborators (Including: Gill, Paramjit and Uthman, Olalekan A.). (2018) Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. The Lancet, 392 (10152). pp. 1015-1035. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31310-2 ISSN 0140-6736.

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP-alcohol-use-burden-countries-territories-analysis-Gill-2018.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer.
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (4Mb) | Preview
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31310-2

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Background
Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability, but its overall association with health remains complex given the possible protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on some conditions. With our comprehensive approach to health accounting within the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016, we generated improved estimates of alcohol use and alcohol-attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 195 locations from 1990 to 2016, for both sexes and for 5-year age groups between the ages of 15 years and 95 years and older.

Methods
Using 694 data sources of individual and population-level alcohol consumption, along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use, we produced estimates of the prevalence of current drinking, abstention, the distribution of alcohol consumption among current drinkers in standard drinks daily (defined as 10 g of pure ethyl alcohol), and alcohol-attributable deaths and DALYs. We made several methodological improvements compared with previous estimates: first, we adjusted alcohol sales estimates to take into account tourist and unrecorded consumption; second, we did a new meta-analysis of relative risks for 23 health outcomes associated with alcohol use; and third, we developed a new method to quantify the level of alcohol consumption that minimises the overall risk to individual health.

Findings
Globally, alcohol use was the seventh leading risk factor for both deaths and DALYs in 2016, accounting for 2·2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1·5–3·0) of age-standardised female deaths and 6·8% (5·8–8·0) of age-standardised male deaths. Among the population aged 15–49 years, alcohol use was the leading risk factor globally in 2016, with 3·8% (95% UI 3·2–4·3) of female deaths and 12·2% (10·8–13·6) of male deaths attributable to alcohol use. For the population aged 15–49 years, female attributable DALYs were 2·3% (95% UI 2·0–2·6) and male attributable DALYs were 8·9% (7·8–9·9). The three leading causes of attributable deaths in this age group were tuberculosis (1·4% [95% UI 1·0–1·7] of total deaths), road injuries (1·2% [0·7–1·9]), and self-harm (1·1% [0·6–1·5]). For populations aged 50 years and older, cancers accounted for a large proportion of total alcohol-attributable deaths in 2016, constituting 27·1% (95% UI 21·2–33·3) of total alcohol-attributable female deaths and 18·9% (15·3–22·6) of male deaths. The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0·0–0·8) standard drinks per week.

Interpretation
Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero. These results suggest that alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: R Medicine > RC Internal medicine
Divisions: Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Medicine > Warwick Medical School
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): World health, Alcoholism -- Statistics, Drinking of alcoholic beverages -- Health aspects, Alcohol -- Health aspects -- Statistics
Journal or Publication Title: The Lancet
Publisher: Lancet Publishing Group
ISSN: 0140-6736
Official Date: 22 September 2018
Dates:
DateEvent
22 September 2018Published
23 August 2018Available
1 June 2018Accepted
Volume: 392
Number: 10152
Page Range: pp. 1015-1035
DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31310-2
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access (Creative Commons)
Copyright Holders: The Author(s)
Date of first compliant deposit: 28 August 2018
Date of first compliant Open Access: 28 August 2018
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant:
Project/Grant IDRIOXX Funder NameFunder ID
UNSPECIFIEDBill and Melinda Gates Foundationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000865

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us