United States: Deaths from alcohol have increased sharply across the United States within the past two decades, with many more women becoming fatalities in the US, a new report has indicated.
More about the news
According to Yiota Kitsantas, the senior author and head of population health and social medicine at the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) College of Medicine, “Our study found significant gender differences in alcohol-related [death rates],” US News reported.
“While men had higher overall death rates, women experienced a larger relative increase, which may reflect changing social norms and the alcohol industry’s increased targeting of women through marketing campaigns,” Kitsantas added.
For the study, she and her team examined data from the US government from 1999 to 2020.
Study analysis
During the same span, the death rate from alcohol-related causes rose steeply, from an average of 10.7 to 21.6 deaths per hundred thousand.
From a raw view, the annual mortality of alcohol-related deaths increased from 19,356 to 48,870. Numbers were up in every age range seen, though the increase itself was nearly fourfold within the age group of 25-34 years.
In an article published recently in the American Journal of Medicine, researchers said there is evidence of health issues that might need specific solutions.
These are deteriorated by obesity, diabetes, and liver damage, which increase alcohol-related death rates, they said.
What more are the experts stating?
The study co-author, Dr. Charles Hennekens, said that healthcare providers must understand that increased alcohol consumption is a potent cause of early mortality and both heart attack and stroke.
A professor at FAU College of Medicine said that it is necessary to screen alcohol use in primary care treatment.
Among the gender and age groups of individuals in the nation over the study period, both men and women aged 55-64 recorded the highest spike in death rates, US News reported.
They also found that in 1999 and 2020, men had higher rates of alcohol-related deaths than women. But the death rates of women skyrocketed relatively speaking, from 4.8 per 100,000 women in 1999 to 12 in 2020.
The mortality rate of Asians and Pacific Islanders increased 2.4-fold and increased 2.5 times for those in the Midwest, then the Northeast, West, and South.
It was established that alcohol consumption patterns and alcohol impact on health differ across nations.
They attributed this to their finding that Latvia had the highest annual per capita consumption in 2019 at 13.2 liters, while France’s consumption was 12.2 liters, and the United States’ consumption was 10 liters.