Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost From Excessive Alcohol Use - United States, 2011-2015.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Population-level epidemiological modeling and surveillance analysis (design analogy)
PubMed 33001874 · doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6939a6
What was done
The CDC estimated national and state-level average annual alcohol-attributable deaths and years of potential life lost (YPLL) in the United States for 2011–2015 using the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) application. The tool modeled deaths from both individual excessive drinking (e.g., chronic liver disease) and others' drinking (e.g., alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes).
What was found
An estimated average of 95,158 alcohol-attributable deaths (261 deaths per day) and 2.8 million YPLL (mean 29 years of life lost per death) occurred each year in the United States. Chronic conditions accounted for 51,078 deaths (53.7%), and 52,921 deaths (55.6%) occurred in adults aged 35–64 years. Age-adjusted alcohol-attributable deaths per 100,000 ranged from 20.8 in New York to 53.1 in New Mexico, while YPLL per 100,000 ranged from 631.9 in New York to 1,683.5 in New Mexico.
Why it matters
This report establishes the substantial premature mortality burden of excessive alcohol consumption in the United States, demonstrating that over half of these deaths affect working-age adults and result in nearly three decades of lost life per decedent.
Limits
The findings rely on epidemiological population-attributable risk modeling rather than directly measured individual causal pathways. Self-reported consumption data used to calculate attributable fractions typically suffer from underreporting, and mortality data may reflect state-by-state variations in cause-of-death reporting and coding.
Cited by
- supports Alcohol consumption causes approximately 150,000 deaths in the United States each year.