GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed in its latest report on Tuesday that alcohol consumption contributes to nearly three million deaths every year globally, despite a slight decline in death rates in recent years that remains “unacceptably high”.
According to the WHO, alcohol is responsible for approximately one in 20 deaths worldwide annually, through factors such as drink driving, alcohol-induced violence, and a wide range of diseases and disorders exacerbated by alcohol abuse.
In 2019, alcohol consumption led to 2.6 million deaths, accounting for 4.7 percent of all global deaths that year. The report highlighted that nearly three-quarters of these deaths were among men.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern over the persistent impact of alcohol on public health, noting, “Substance use severely harms individual health, increasing the risk of chronic diseases, mental health conditions, and tragically resulting in millions of preventable deaths every year.”
While there has been some reduction in alcohol consumption and related harm since 2010, Tedros emphasized that the overall burden on health and society remains high, with younger age groups disproportionately affected. The report pointed out that 13 percent of alcohol-attributable deaths in 2019 occurred among persons aged 20 to 39.
Alcohol consumption is linked to various health conditions, including liver cirrhosis, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and injuries from accidents and self-harm. Specifically, in 2019, alcohol was estimated to have caused 474,000 deaths from cardiovascular diseases, 401,000 from cancer, and 724,000 from injuries.
Moreover, alcohol abuse increases susceptibility to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, and pneumonia, according to the report.
The report also highlighted disparities in alcohol consumption worldwide, with Europe recording the highest per capita drinking levels at 9.2 liters, followed by the Americas at 7.5 liters.
Despite an overall decrease in per capita consumption from 5.7 liters in 2010 to 5.5 liters in 2019, the WHO cautioned that heavy episodic drinking remains prevalent globally. In 2019, 38 percent of current drinkers engaged in heavy episodic drinking, defined as consuming at least 60 grams of pure alcohol on one or more occasions in the previous month.
Among adolescents aged 15 to 19, 23.5 percent globally were classified as current drinkers, with higher rates observed in Europe (over 45 percent) and the Americas (nearly 44 percent) for this age group.
Vladimir Poznyak, head of WHO’s unit for alcohol, drugs, and addictive behaviors, emphasized the critical need to address these challenges, stating, “Stigma, discrimination and misconceptions about the efficacy of treatment contribute to these critical gaps in treatment provision.”
