Alcohol and Health

Alcohol and Health

Immoderate alcohol consumption is one of the leading factors contributing to major impact on global public health, which results approximately 2.25 million deaths even excluding beneficial impacts on morbidity and mortality (1). The harmful effect of alcohol use causes more than over 60 types of illnesses and injuries including cardiovascular diseases and oropharynx, esophagus, colorectal, liver and breast cancers. The number of death is higher than those caused by HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis (2). Thus, alcohol use contributes to four present of all cases of death in the world. According to the WHO, the harmful use of alcohol is lethal especially for young populations over the countries and it is leading cause for death among males aged 15 to 59 (1).

Negative impact of alcohol on young populations (3): Harmful use of alcohol contributes approximately 4.5 percent of the global burden of illnesses and injury. Alcohol abuse counts for twenty to fifty percent of death from divers reasons (cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, poisonings, road traffic accidents, violence and several types of cancer). Alcohol also contributes to mental disorders that cause death of disability among relatively young populations. As results of mental disorders, they have to spend many years of their young adulthoods with disabilities.

Alcohol-related mortality: Harmful use of alcohol contributes 3.8% of all death in the world in 2004, which including 6.2% for male and 1.1% for female (4). There is significant sex-difference in the rates of death due to abuse of alcohol. Also, there are significantly differences according to the different geographic regains. WHO divides the world into six different regions; Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific. Within regions sub-regions were divided based on levels of child and adult mortality (4). Countries mainly identified with Muslim cultures shows least alcohol-attributable deaths compared to other countries, which is not surprising result since most people in Muslim cultures are abstainers with religious believes. Death rate in the western European countries is relatively small even they have high level of alcohol consumption, which can be supported by their drinking patterns, age variations in population, and positive impact of alcohol use in these countries.

Global movement to set up the policies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol actively started in 1999 (5). Since then about 35 countries have accepted these policies and restrictions of alcohol advertising and marketing has significantly increased (5). Most of the countries enforce a law using a random breadth test on roadway to stop drink driving. Strategies and policies to reduce alcohol-attributable harm or death should be made based on understanding of patterns, levels and cultural context of alcohol consumption with analyzing target groups and approachable measures. Understanding importance of harmful alcohol use associated with socioeconomic background is inevitable to build policy formulation effectively.

1. World Health Organization (2009). Global health risks. Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks. Geneva.

2. Lönnroth K et al. (2008). Alcohol use as a risk factor for tuberculosis - a systematic review. BMC Public Health, 8:289.

3. Eaton DK et al. (2010). Youth risk behavior surveillance – United States, 2009. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 59:1 -142 (Surveillance Summaries).

4. World Health Organization (2004). Global status report: alcohol policy. Geneva, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

5. World Health Organization (2005). Resolution WHA58.26. Public-health problems caused by harmful use of alcohol. In: Fifty-eighth World Health Assembly, Geneva, 25 May 2005. Geneva.