2.6 million people died because of alcohol in 2019, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, June 25, a figure that is falling but remains “unacceptably high”.
We can never point it out enough, but raising your elbow can kill. The latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO), published this Tuesday, June 25, states that alcohol killed 2.6 million people in 2019 – latest data available –, or 4.7% of deaths. around the world that year. The study highlights that alcohol causes almost 1 in 20 deaths each year globally, including related road accidents, violence, abuse and a multitude of diseases and disorders.
Men represent three quarters of these deaths. “Substance use seriously harms individual health, increases the risk of chronic illness and mental illness, and tragically results in millions of preventable deaths each year”lamented the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a press release.
In the report, he points out “a certain reduction of Alcohol consumption and ills caused since 2010 in the world. But despite a slight decline in recent years, “health and social ills due to alcohol abuse remain unacceptably high”, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who emphasizes that young people are disproportionately affected. The highest proportion of deaths attributable to alcohol in 2019 is indeed in the 20-39 year old age group, with 13% of deaths.
Alcohol abuse also makes you vulnerable to infectious diseases
Cancers, cirrhosis, cardiovascular accidents… Alcohol causes a slew of diseases. Of the 2.6 million alcohol-related deaths in 2019, the report specifies that 1.6 million people died from non-communicable diseases, including 474,000 from cardiovascular diseases and 401,000 from cancer. An additional 724,000 deaths result from injuries, including road accidents and self-harm. Alcohol abuse also makes people more vulnerable to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS and pneumonia.
Around 209 million people were living with alcohol dependence in 2019, or 3.7% of the global population. At the same time, individual annual consumption fell slightly, to 5.5 liters in 2019 compared to 5.7 liters nine years earlier, according to the report. But consumption is unevenly distributed across the globe, with more than half of the world’s population aged over 15 abstaining entirely. Europe has the highest levels of consumption, with 9.2 liters of alcohol per year on average, followed by the United States and South America with 7.5 liters. The lowest consumption is found in predominantly Muslim countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the report explains.
The text also points out the quantities of drinks ingested by consumers. On average, in 2019, a drinker consumed 27 grams of alcohol per day according to the report. That’s about the same as two glasses of wine, two beers, or two shots of hard liquor. “This level and frequency of consumption is associated with higher risks of catching many diseases, as well as mortality and disability” who accompany them, warns the WHO.
In 2019, 38% of habitual drinkers admitted to having engaged in episodes of “heavy consumption”, the threshold of which is at least 60 grams of pure alcohol on one or more occasions during the previous month. Globally, 23.5% of 15-19 year olds are considered habitual drinkers. But the figure jumps to more than 45% for people of this age living in Europe, and to almost 44% for those living in the United States and South America.
What are the solutions to excessive alcohol consumption? Given the scale of the problem, WHO points to an urgent need to improve access to quality treatment for substance use disorders. For Vladimir Poznyak, head of the alcohol, drugs and addictive behaviors department at the WHO, the prevention of alcohol addiction still receives a lack of consideration: “Stigma, discrimination and misconceptions about the effectiveness of treatments contribute to these serious gaps in treatment provision.” In 2019, the proportion of people in contact with drug services ranged from less than 1% to a maximum of 35%, depending on the country studied.
