Alcohol consumption is a major contributor to global ill health, disability, and death. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is responsible for 3 million deaths each year worldwide, accounting for 5.1% of the global burden of disease. In the United States alone, thousands of people aged 18 to 22 die each year due to alcohol-related causes, including car accidents and other unintentional injuries. This figure includes an estimated 1,519 college students aged 18 to 24 who die from alcohol-related injuries annually. The WHO estimates that alcohol is the cause of 5.3% of all human deaths per year.
This means that approximately 1 in 20 deaths worldwide is due to an alcohol-related illness, injury, accident, murder or suicide. This rate is higher than that of HIV, which causes less than 2% of deaths worldwide, and non-alcohol-related violence, which causes less than 1%.It's important to note that occasional drinking may be fine, but drinking too much can be deadly. In fact, alcohol-related deaths number about 3 million each year worldwide. It is also one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the United States. Fortunately, governments can reduce the health, safety and socio-economic problems associated with alcohol by formulating and implementing appropriate policies.
Harmful use of alcohol causes a high burden of disease and has significant social and economic consequences. Alcohol use can have an impact not only on the incidence of illnesses, injuries and other health problems, but also on their results and how they evolve over time. The Global Alcohol and Health Information System (GISAH) is an essential tool for assessing and monitoring the health situation and trends related to alcohol consumption, alcohol-related harm and policy responses in countries. It can help identify areas where interventions are needed to reduce the burden of alcohol-related harm. The vast majority of those who die from the long-term effects of heavy drinking die due to alcoholic liver disease. People with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) are more likely to seek care from a primary care physician for an alcohol-related medical problem than specifically for drinking too much alcohol. Driving under the influence of alcohol is dangerous because it affects your ability to reason, think clearly, judge or follow traffic laws.
Communities estimate that between 1 and 5 percent of first-degree children have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs).Alcohol poisoning is a significant risk of heavy drinking or drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. In many societies today, alcoholic beverages are a routine part of the social landscape for many members of the population. Drinking alcohol by a future mother can lead to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and complications in preterm labor. Alcohol is a factor in the deaths of thousands of people under the age of 21 in the United States each year. In severe cases of alcohol poisoning, a person may go into a coma, stop breathing or suffer a heart attack or seizures. A study conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday.
