Deaths directly linked to alcohol rose sharply during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accelerating a decades-long trend and underscoring the far-reaching impact the outbreak has had on society.
The report only considers deaths directly attributable to excessive alcohol consumption. As such, it provides an incomplete picture of the health impact of alcohol consumption, which has well documented links to a variety of issues including cancer, mental health problems and cardiovascular disease.
Another report published this week in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined the broader range of deaths associated with alcohol consumption in the U.S. for the five years prior to the pandemic (2015-2019).
The study, conducted by researchers at the CDC and Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, concluded that alcohol use drove an estimated 695,000 deaths each year in adults aged 20 to 64 years.
The figure, which accounted for a broad range of issues including cancers, heart disease and injuries resulting from alcohol use, would attribute roughly 1 in 8 deaths to alcohol use during that time. Among younger adults aged 20 to 49 years, this rose to roughly 1 in 5 total deaths.
The research underscores the broader health impact of the Covid-19 pandemic beyond the virus itself and highlights the growing problem of excessive alcohol use for younger Americans. Drinking, and the number of alcohol-related deaths, has been steadily rising for decades in the U.S. (deaths rose by at most 7% a year, according to the CDC data) but the pandemic appears to have accelerated the process. An uptick in drinking has been well-documented as a consequence of the numerous social pressures that comes with the pandemic, for example through the shift to working from home, mandatory isolation or the loss of social support networks.
The big number: 3 million. That’s how many deaths each year result from the harmful use of alcohol, according to the World Health Organization. This represents more than 5% of all deaths, the agency said, though this rate is far higher among younger people. Alcohol contributes to a number of other social and health issues beyond death and the WHO said it was responsible for more than 5% of the global burden of disease and injury.
This article was first published on forbes.com
Further Reading
The pandemic may have created a nation of problem drinkers – and many are women (CNN)
New Study Reveals Almost One In Five Americans Drinking Heavily During Pandemic (Forbes)
The No-Alcohol Industry Boomed Over the Pandemic. Where’s It Going Next? (Forbes)