Perspectives in Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Alcohol-Related Deaths -- United States, 1968-1978
According to mortality data from the National Center for Health
Statistics, from 1968 through 1978, 11,806,737 people died in the
United States. Of these deaths, 22,958 were attributed to acute
alcoholism,* acute ethylism,** or unspecified alcoholism (ICD***
8-rubric 303.9); and 3,415 were attributed to poisoning by alcohol
(ICD 8-rubric E860). When the risk of death was determined (using
data from the Bureau of the Census), the risk remained constant.
However, during this 11-year period, the proportion of deaths from
these causes increased somewhat, especially for males.
To identify risk factors for reducing the number of deaths from
these causes, acute alcoholism/ethylism deaths and alcohol
poisoning
deaths were further analyzed by urban or rural residence, sex, and
month and week of occurrence. The proportion of deaths from both
acute alcoholism/ethylism and alcohol poisoning was greatest for
rural
males (Table 1). Regardless of area of residence, the proportion
of
deaths attributed to both causes was more than twice as great for
males as for females. The median age at death from acute
alcoholism
was 50.4 years, with the median age for women nearly equal to that
(50.1). Nine of the deaths occurred among persons under the age of
10
years and 235 among persons 80 years or older. The median age at
death for victims of alcohol poisoning was 48.2 years, with the
median
age for women slightly above that for men (50.5, compared with
47.3).
Eighteen of these deaths occurred among persons under 10 years of
age,
and 10, among persons 80 years or older.
Seasonal data for deaths from acute alcoholism/ethylism and
poisoning as a proportion of all deaths indicate that the
proportion
is greatest during December (Figure 1), especially among males.
When
deaths during the period from December 1 through January 4 were
further analyzed by week, the pattern for males differed from that
for
females (Figure 2). For both causes of death, the greatest
percentage
of deaths among males within this period occurred during the week
including December 25, with a decline during the week including
January 1. For females, the rate rose during Christmas week and
increased even more during the week following, which includes New
Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Reported by Div of Surveillance and Epidemiologic Studies,
Epidemiology Program Office, CDC.
Editorial Note
Editorial Note: The potential for rapid intake of large amounts of
alcohol to cause death has been previously documented (1,2). Many
of
these are classified as deaths from acute alcohol intoxication,
acute
alcoholism, or acute ethylism. Death from alcohol poisoning has
also
been described (1,3). At least one study indicated the vast
majority
of alcohol poisoning deaths was caused by ethanol alone, and the
remainder, by a combination of ethanol with other forms of alcohol
(3). Even poisonings caused by alcohol other than ethanol are
usually
due to substitution of these substances for ethanol (4) and
sometimes
result from adulterated beverages given to unsuspecting drinkers
(1).
The similarity in distribution and trends for deaths from acute
alcoholism and ethylism and deaths from alcohol poisoning indicates
that these deaths are part of the same health problem.
Nearly all deaths from acute alcohol poisoning are accidental,
and
many persons are not aware that alcohol in excess is poisonous and
possibly fatal (3). Death from acute alcohol intoxication is often
associated with exposure to cold (1). Conversely, ethanol has been
identified as a risk factor for death from hypothermia (5). From
the
data presented here, several additional risk factors for acute
alcohol-consumption deaths can be identified. It appears that not
only the cold-weather months, but especially the weeks surrounding
Christmas, are high-risk periods. During these times, males in
general and rural males in particular are important target
populations
for prevention efforts.
References
Lees F. Alcohol and the nervous system. Br J Psychiat 1975;
Spec. No. 9:263-71.
Estes NJ, Heinemann ME. Alcoholism: development,
consequences,
and interventions. St. Louis: The C. V. Mosby Company, 1982.
Fatteh A, Hayes B. Poisons that killed: an analysis of 300
cases. North Carolina Med J 1974; 35:227-9.
Friedman PA. Common poisons. In: Isselbacher KJ, Adams RD,
Braunwald E, Petersdorf RG, Wilson JD, eds. Harrison's
principles
of internal medicine (ninth edition). New York: McGraw-Hill
Book
Co., 1980.
CDC. Exposure-related hypothermia deaths--District of
Columbia,
1972-1982. MMWR 1982;31:669-71.
Disclaimer
All MMWR HTML documents published before January 1993 are electronic conversions from ASCII text into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables. An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800. Contact GPO for current prices.
**Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov.
