Trends in alcohol-attributable morbidity and mortality for Victoria, Australia from 2000/01 to 2009/10

Background To examine trends in alcohol-attributable morbidity (AAMorb) (2000/01–2009/10) and mortality (AAMort) (2000–07) by age, sex and region. Methods Time-series analyses of population data for Victoria, Australia. We used joinpoint regression to quantify trends by estimating quarterly percent change (QPC) for rates of morbidity and mortality. We present the average QPC (AQPC) as a weighted average of QPCs. A test of parallelism was used to examine pairwise differences. Results AAMorb increased significantly over time for Victoria (AQPC = 1.0%, 95% confidence interval 0.8–1.2). While females (1.6, 1.1–2.0), age groups 25–44 (1.0, 0.9–1.1) and 45–64 (1.2, 0.2–2.2), and metropolitan population (1.2, 0.5–1.9) were broad subgroups more at risk, multivariate analysis detected specific increases for metropolitan females aged 15–44 (1.8, 1.0–2.6) and 45+ (1.6, 0.2–3.0). Relatively greater increases in morbidity among metropolitan subgroups were widespread. AAMort remained stable for Victoria and for most subgroups, although significant declines in mortality were specifically experienced by metropolitan 15–24 (−2.0, −2.9 to −1.0) and 25–44 (−1.0, −1.7 to −0.3) age groups, and by regional males aged 45+ (−0.8, −1.3 to −0.3). Metropolitan males aged 45+ were a special high-risk population. Discussion Our study has identified overlooked subgroups as being at increasing risk for alcohol-attributable chronic harm necessitating their inclusion in future policies for harm reduction.