Deaths associated with high-volume drinking of alcohol among adults in Canada in 2002: a need for primary care intervention?

Alcohol is causally related to many different causes of death, including different cancers, cardiovascular diseases, mental health conditions, digestive diseases and injury categories (English et al. 1995; Gutjahr et al. [...]
This study estimates risks of mortality associated with high-volume drinking for Canada in 2002 by age and sex. Distribution of exposure was taken from a major Canadian survey and corrected for per capita consumption from production and sales. High-volume drinking was defined as a daily consumption of ≥40 grams of pure alcohol (at least 3 Canadian drinks) for men and ≥ 20 grams of pure alcohol (at least 1.5 Canadian drinks) for women. Risk relations were taken from the published literature and combined with exposure to calculate age-and sex-specific alcohol-attributable fractions for high-volume drinking. Information on mortality was obtained from Statistics Canada and combined with alcohol-attributable fractions to estimate the overall mortality due to alcohol. About 4,950 net deaths (3,236 in those below 70 years of age) were due to high-volume drinking of alcohol in Canada in 2002. This constituted 2.2% (5.0% among those below 70 years of age) of all deaths. The net deaths were composed of 5,717 deaths caused and 767 deaths prevented. There was an age gradient, with the net deaths highest in 45-59 years age group. About 70.6% (5,717/8, 103) of the overall deaths caused by alcohol were the result of high-volume drinking. Overall, the net impact of high-volume drinking of alcohol consumption on mortality in Canada is high. Policies should strive to reduce the burden of high-volume alcohol consumption. In addition to alcohol control measures, individual level interventions should be implemented in primary care to significantly reduce such burden. KEY WORDS: Alcohol, high-volume drinking, mortality, primary care, policy