Wine Information Council
3 june 2015
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Surveillance of US Death Rates from Chronic Diseases Related to Excessive Alcohol Use

AIMS: To assess the utility of multiple-cause (MC) death records for surveillance of US mortality rates from chronic causes related to excessive alcohol use.

METHODS: The Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) resource produced estimates of the population 'alcohol attributable fraction' (AAF) due to excessive drinking for each alcohol-related (AAF > 0%) cause of death, and used AAFs to estimate numbers of alcohol-related deaths from alcohol-related underlying causes (UC) in adults age 20-64 and 65+ years in 2006-2010. For surveillance, this study used MC death file to identify individual deaths (2006-2010) with an 'alcohol-induced' cause (AAF = 100%) anywhere on the certificate, and to obtain US rates of premature death (ages 15-64 and 65-74 years) for 1999-2012.

RESULTS: Using the selected MC records, numbers of deaths from alcohol-related chronic UC (2006-2010) were 81% of ARDI estimates for age 20-64, but only 40% for 65+ years. The MC records identified substantial numbers of deaths from causes (e.g. certain infectious diseases) not included as alcohol-related in ARDI, but included in surveillance of premature death rates for chronic UC. Also, premature death rates for chronic alcohol-induced causes using only the UC (as in routine mortality statistics) were only about half the rates based on MC; all rates increased in recent years but some reached statistical significance only by using MC.

CONCLUSIONS: Using MC records underestimated total US deaths from alcohol-related chronic causes as the UC, but enhanced surveillance of rates for premature deaths involving chronic causes that may be related to excessive alcohol use.

Additional Info

  • Authors

    Polednak A.P.

  • Issue

    Alcohol Alcohol. 2015 Jun 3. pii: agv056. [Epub ahead of print]

  • Published Date

    3 june 2015

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