Alcohol Consumption and Morality in the U.S.

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Alcohol Consumption and Morality in the U.S., 1950–2000

R01 AA014362

Abstract:

This study aims to quantify the relationships between measures of alcohol consumption and specific alcohol-related mortality outcomes in 50-year time series from each of the U.S. states. Per capita beer wine and spirits sales, converted into ethanol using improved conversion factors unique to this study, will be used to predict age-standardized mortality rates. Outcome measures include liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis, alcohol-related cancers, heart disease (IHD) explicitly alcohol-related causes and subcategories such as psychosis, dependence, and polyneuropathy, all external; causes and subcategories of suicide, homicide all accidents and motor vehicle accidents, and all-cause mortality. These series will be analyzed using Auto-Regressive-Integrated-Moving Average (ARIMA) models and using pooled cross-section time series methods. Additional analyses will utilize data from the Nationall Alcohol Survey (NAS), Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) to measure patterns of drinking and gender, age group and ethnicity specific drinking measures for the years in which these are available to model the relationship between these and mortality rates in these demographic groups. These analyses are especially important for chronic diseases as birth-cohort patterns of consumption can be traced across multiple surveys and linked to current mortality. These analyses also offer the ability to identify drinking patterns linked to particular mortality outcomes and to control for rates of illegal drug use in these populations. Fixed and random effects models, controlling for significant confounders, will be used in the survey based trend analyses.

This project continues the work of the European (ECAS) and Canadian time-series projects, which have explored these relationships in 50-year time series in most western European countries and in the Canadian provinces. The U.S. states offer an important opportunity to confirm and extend the findings of these studies and the addition of survey-based measures will further specify the sources of alcohol-related mortality.

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Last updating of page: February 24, 2005