Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul 31;69(30):981-987.
doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6930a1.

Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost From Excessive Alcohol Use - United States, 2011-2015

Marissa B Esser, Adam Sherk, Yong Liu, Timothy S Naimi, Timothy Stockwell, Mandy Stahre, Dafna Kanny, Michael Landen, Richard Saitz, Robert D Brewer

Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost From Excessive Alcohol Use - United States, 2011-2015

Marissa B Esser et al. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. .

Erratum in

Corrected and republished in

Abstract

Excessive alcohol use is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States (1) and costs associated with it, such as those from losses in workplace productivity, health care expenditures, and criminal justice, were $249 billion in 2010 (2). CDC used the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) application* to estimate national and state average annual alcohol-attributable deaths and years of potential life lost (YPLL) during 2011-2015, including deaths from one's own excessive drinking (e.g., liver disease) and from others' drinking (e.g., passengers killed in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes). This study found an average of 93,296 alcohol-attributable deaths (255 deaths per day) and 2.7 million YPLL (29 years of life lost per death, on average) in the United States each year. Of all alcohol-attributable deaths, 51,078 (54.7%) were caused by chronic conditions, and 52,361 (56.0%) involved adults aged 35-64 years. Age-adjusted alcohol-attributable deaths per 100,000 population ranged from 20.3 in New Jersey and New York to 52.3 in New Mexico. YPLL per 100,000 population ranged from 613.8 in New York to 1,651.7 in New Mexico. Implementation of effective strategies for preventing excessive drinking, including those recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force (e.g., increasing alcohol taxes and regulating the number and concentration of alcohol outlets), could reduce alcohol-attributable deaths and YPLL.†.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

All authors have completed and submitted the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. Timothy Stockwell reports grants and personal fees from Alko, Finland, outside the submitted work. Richard Saitz reports nonfinancial support from Alkermes; personal fees from UpToDate and Massachusetts Medical Society; support and consulting fees from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute; travel support and consulting fees from the American Medical Association, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, Wolters Kluwer, National Council on Behavioral Healthcare, the International Network on Brief Intervention for Alcohol and other drugs, Systembolaget, Kaiser Permanente, RAND, the Institute for Research and Training in the Addictions, the National Council on Behavioral Healthcare, Charles University (Czech Republic), National Committee on Quality Assurance, and the University of Oregon; and salary support from Burroughs Wellcome Fund. No other potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Figures

FIGURE
FIGURE
Average annual number of deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use, by sex and age group — United States, 2011–2015 * In the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact application (https://www.cdc.gov/ARDI), deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use include deaths from 1) conditions that are 100% alcohol-attributable, 2) deaths caused by acute conditions that involved binge drinking, and 3) deaths caused by chronic conditions that involved medium (>1 to ≤2 drinks of alcohol [women] or >2 to ≤4 drinks [men]) or high (>2 drinks of alcohol [women] or >4 drinks [men]) levels of average daily alcohol consumption.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Mokdad AH, Ballestros K, Echko M, et al.; US Burden of Disease Collaborators. The state of US health, 1990–2016: burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors among US states. JAMA 2018;319:1444–72. 10.1001/jama.2018.0158 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sacks JJ, Gonzales KR, Bouchery EE, Tomedi LE, Brewer RD. 2010 national and state costs of excessive alcohol consumption. Am J Prev Med 2015;49:e73–9. 10.1016/j.amepre.2015.05.031 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Stahre M, Naimi T, Brewer R, Holt J. Measuring average alcohol consumption: the impact of including binge drinks in quantity-frequency calculations. Addiction 2006;101:1711–8. 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2006.01615.x - DOI - PubMed
    1. Smith GS, Branas CC, Miller TR. Fatal nontraffic injuries involving alcohol: a metaanalysis. Ann Emerg Med 1999;33:659–68. - PubMed
    1. Stahre M, Roeber J, Kanny D, Brewer RD, Zhang X. Contribution of excessive alcohol consumption to deaths and years of potential life lost in the United States. Prev Chronic Dis 2014;11:E109. 10.5888/pcd11.130293 - DOI - PMC - PubMed