An overwhelming number of Americans die of alcohol

Fewer Americans say they drink alcohol now than they have done for decades, but for those who do it, the habit seems to have become considerably more deadly over time, with the mortality rate linked to alcohol in the United States almost in the past twenty years.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, have examined the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention American to note that the alcohol-related death rate increased between 1999 and 2024, with a particularly clear increase to the strongest of the Pandemic COVID-19. And although such deaths have decreased since this peak, they remain clearly raised.

“These results highlight the urgent need for targeted policies to reduce excessive alcohol consumption and improve access to treatment,” write the authors in an article published Tuesday in PLOS Global Health.

A shocking increase

New discoveries are going with previous studies that also suggested alcohol -related deaths in America climbing decades. But it remained clear as to the specific types of death caused by alcohol, or if the increase in deadly consumption observed during the pandemic was maintained.

To try to unravel the answers to these questions, the researchers analyzed the CDC mortality data through 14 causes of death induced by alcohol consumption. These included an alcoholic liver disease, several forms of alcohol poisoning, as well as mental and behavioral conditions caused by alcohol.

Overall, the alcohol -related death rate increased by 89% between 1999 and 2024, the researchers revealed. The only deadly year of this period was in 2021, which saw 54,258 deaths reported that year. By 2024, deaths had started to stabilize, but the average alcohol mortality rate was still 25% higher than in 2019.

Deadly consumption trends

The results also offer more clarity on who dies of poor alcohol consumption and why, the researchers said.

The majority of alcohol -related deaths were caused by an alcoholic liver disease, followed by mental and behavioral conditions caused by alcohol. Interestingly, the rate of death of alcohol poisoning has remained low throughout the study period, which indicates that acute overdoses are relatively rare compared to chronic and heavy consumption of alcohol.

Alcohol -related deaths have historically been more common in men, but researchers’ results suggest that this could change: they found that the greatest increase in the mortality rate of any demographic group during the study period was one of women aged 25 to 34, followed by men in the same age group. The native populations of America and Alaska have also turned out to be at a particular risk.

“The rapid development of deaths induced by alcohol in women is particularly worrying. Although men still die at higher rates, the gap between the sexes seems to end,” said the author of the main study, Maria R. d’Orsogna, Associate Auxiliary Professor in the IT Medicine Department of the UCLA, in a press release. “In particular, for the population aged 25 to 34, the male-feminine mortality report went from three to one in 1999 to two to one in 2024.”

The researchers noted that they had examined the deaths most directly linked to alcohol consumption, so that their results probably do not capture the full number of alcohol on the health of Americans. Alcohol is known to increase the risk or worsen a myriad of chronic health problems, including certain cancers. And other research has suggested that more than 178,000 deaths in the United States linked to excessive alcohol consumption occur each year.

More work must be done to determine the best way to prevent these deaths, the researchers said.

“The increase in mortality induced by alcohol and its heterogeneous tendencies through demography highlight the need for better understanding of socio-economic factors linked to excessive alcohol consumption and targeted prevention and treatment efforts, in particular for men, young people and the population (American Indians / Alaska)”, they wrote.