CDC study: One in 10 deaths among working-age adults attributable to excessive drinking.
USA Today (6/26) reports that a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that excessive drinking was the cause of one in 10 deaths among working-age adults between 2006 and 2010. The paper notes that the CDC defined excessive drinking activities to include “binge drinking, heavy weekly alcohol consumption and drinking while underage or pregnant.” The CDC found those activities instigated “long-term health effects such as liver disease and heart disease, as well as short-period effects such as violence, alcohol poisoning, car crashes and drowning.”
The Washington Post (6/27, Bernstein) “To Your Health” blog reports that CDC researchers estimated that “excessive drinking cost the United States about $224 billion in 2006, or about $1.90 per drink” in public health costs. The study found that deaths caused by excessive drinking varied greatly by state from the 16.9% of deaths occurring in New Mexico as the highest to the 7.6% of deaths occurring in Maryland as the lowest nationwide,
The Los Angeles Times (6/27, Kaplan) “Science Now” blog reports that to calculate the years of life lost, the CDC “compared the age at which victims died to their expected life span,” which was based on age and gender. Following the calculation the paper reports that the CDC found that “the total number of unlived years added up to an average of 2,560,290 per year.” Also covering the story are Bloomberg BusinessWeek (6/26), NBC News (6/27, Carroll), NPR (6/27, Shute), Congressional Quarterly (6/27, Subscription Publication) , HealthDay (6/27), MedPage Today (6/27), the Huffington Post (6/27, Almendrala), CNN (6/27, Christensen, Cnn), the New Orleans Times-Picayune (6/27), and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (6/27).
