Drinking is Behind the Deaths of 1 in 10 Working-age Adults

One in 10 deaths among working-age adults between 2006 and 2010 were attributable to excessive drinking, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

A study published in Preventing Chronic Disease found that excessive alcohol use — which includes binge drinking, heavy weekly alcohol consumption and drinking while underage or pregnant — was responsible for approximately 88,000 deaths between 2006 and 2010. The lives of those who died were shortened by about 30 years.

About 70% of those deaths were working-age adults between the ages of 20 to 64, said Mandy Stahre, epidemiologist at the Washington State Department of Health and author of the study.

"We're talking about a large economic impact, people who are contributing to society," Stahre said. "They're in the prime of their lives, whether they're building up careers or midcareer. A lot of attention we tend to focus on is maybe college drinking or just drunk driving. This really talked about the broadness of the problem."

The study was conducted using the CDC's Alcohol-Related Disease Impact tool, which estimates total alcohol-attributable deaths across the United States and in individual states. This study marks the first release of a nationwide report on the number of alcohol-related deaths, but Stahre said they had been collecting information since 2001. The tool gathers mortality statistics from local and state governments, and used scientific methods developed by a group of experts on alcohol and public health to determine the number of deaths linked to alcohol use.

CLICK HERE to READ the CDC Study

There has been a small rise in deaths since 2001, but nothing statistically significant, Stahre said. The 2010 figures represent the last year that data is available, but Stahre hopes the CDC will continue releasing reports every five years to monitor the mortality rates. Stahre also hopes the reports will push state governments to enact more policies concerning alcohol regulation and spread awareness of the potentially fatal consequences of excessive drinking.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.