Past and Future Alcohol-Attributable Mortality in Europe

Abstract

Although alcohol consumption is an important public health issue in Europe, estimates of future alcohol-attributable mortality for European countries are rare, and only apply to the short-term future. We project (age-specific) alcohol-attributable mortality up to 2060 in 26 European countries, after a careful assessment of past trends. For this purpose we used population-level country-, sex-, age- (20–84) and year-specific (1990–2016) alcohol-attributable mortality fractions (AAMF) from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, which we adjusted at older ages. To these data we apply an advanced age-period-cohort projection methodology, that avoids unrealistic future differences and crossovers between sexes and countries. We project that in the future, AAMF levels will decline in all countries, and will converge across countries and sexes. For 2060, projected AAMF are, on average, 5.1% among men and 1.4% among women, whereas in 2016 these levels were 10.1% and 3.3%, respectively. For men, AAMF is projected to be higher in Eastern and South-western Europe than in North-western Europe. All in all, the share of mortality due to alcohol is projected to eventually decline in all 26 European countries. Achieving these projected declines will, however, require strong ongoing public health action, particularly for selected Eastern and North-western European countries.