United States-Mexico Border Disparities in Alcoholic Liver Disease Mortality

Abstract

Background: US-Mexico (US-MX) border regions are impacted by socioeconomic disadvantages. Alcohol use disorder remains widely prevalent in US-MX border regions, which may increase the risk of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Goals: We aimed to characterize ALD mortality trends in border regions compared to non-border regions from 1999 to 2020 in the United States (US). Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis using the CDC repository. We queried death certificates to find ALD-related deaths from 1999 to 2020, which included demographic information such as gender, race/ethnicity, and area of residence. We estimated age-adjusted mortality rates (AAMR) per 100,000 population and compared the AAMRs across border and non-border regions. We also explored yearly mortality shifts using log-linear regression models and calculated the average annual percentage change (AAPC) using the Monte Carlo permutation test. Results: In all, 11,779 ALD-related deaths were identified in border regions (AAMR 7.29) compared with 361,523 in non-border regions (AAMR 5.03). Border male (AAMR 11.21) and female (AAMR 3.77) populations were higher compared with non-border male (AAMR 7.42) and female (2.85) populations, respectively. Border non-Hispanic populations (AAMR 7.53) had higher mortality compared with non-border non-Hispanic populations (4.79), while both populations experienced increasing mortality shifts (AAPC +1.7, P<0.001 and +3.1, P<0.001, respectively). Border metropolitan (AAMR 7.35) and non-metropolitan (AAMR 6.76) regions had higher mortality rates compared with non-border metropolitan (AAMR 4.96) and non-metropolitan (AAMR 5.44) regions. Conclusions: Mortality related to ALD was higher in border regions compared with non-border regions. Border regions face significant health disparities when comparing ALD-related mortality.