Alcohol causes nearly 3 million deaths each year, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, adding that although the death rate has declined slightly in recent years, it remains “unacceptably high.”
The UN health agency’s latest report on alcohol and health says alcohol causes nearly one in 20 deaths worldwide each year, caused by drink driving, alcohol-related violence and abuse, and a range of diseases and disorders.
The report said alcohol consumption caused 2.6 million deaths in 2019 – the latest available figures – representing 4.7 per cent of all deaths worldwide that year.
Nearly three-quarters of these deaths were of men, it said.
“Drug use seriously harms individual health, increases the risk of long-term diseases and mental health conditions, and tragically causes millions of preventable deaths each year,” said World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“There has been some reduction in alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm worldwide since 2010,” he said.
“(But) the health and societal burden caused by alcohol use remains unacceptably high”, he said, highlighting that young people are disproportionately affected.
The highest proportion of deaths attributable to alcohol in 2019 — 13 per cent — were among people aged 20 to 39, the WHO said.
Cancer, car accidents
Drinking alcohol is linked to a number of health problems, including liver cirrhosis and certain cancers.
The report found that of the total deaths caused by non-communicable diseases in 2019, an estimated 1.6 million deaths were caused by non-communicable diseases.
Of these, 474,000 cases were due to cardiovascular diseases, 401,000 to cancer, and 724,000 to other injuries, including traffic accidents and self-injury.
The report found that alcohol abuse makes people more vulnerable to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and pneumonia.
It is estimated that 209 million people were living with alcohol dependence in 2019 – representing 3.7 per cent of the global population.
The report found that per capita alcohol consumption worldwide fell marginally to 5.5 litres in 2019 from 5.7 litres nine years earlier.
But alcohol consumption overall is unevenly distributed around the world.
More than half of the world’s population over the age of 15 completely abstains from smoking.
Per capita alcohol consumption is highest in Europe at 9.2 litres, followed by the United States at 7.5 litres.
The lowest consumption was in Muslim-majority countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the report said.
binge drinkers
The report found that in 2019, drinkers consumed an average of 27 grams of pure alcohol per day.
This is roughly equivalent to two glasses of wine, two small bottles of beer, or two shots of spirits.
The World Health Organization warns that, “This level and frequency of drinking is associated with an increased risk of a number of health conditions and associated mortality and disability.”
In 2019, 38 percent of current drinkers admitted to heavy drinking, defined as drinking at least 60 grams of pure alcohol on one or more occasions in the past month.
Globally, 23.5 percent of young people aged 15 to 19 currently drink alcohol.
The rate rose to more than 45 percent for people in this age group living in Europe, and to nearly 44 percent in the United States.
Improving access to quality treatment for substance use disorders is essential, the World Health Organisation said.
In 2019, the proportion of people accessing such treatment services ranged from one percent to 35 percent across countries that provided this data.
“Stigma, discrimination and misconceptions about the efficacy of treatments contribute to these significant gaps in treatment provision,” Vladimir Poznyak, head of the WHO’s alcohol, drug and addictive behaviours unit, told reporters.
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