Alcohol and drug use disorders are rising and are significantly increasing the global burden of disease, new research shows.
Investigators at the National Health and Medical Research Council, National Drug and Alcohol Research Center, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, found that alcohol use disorders are now the most prevalent of all substance use disorders (SUDs), with 100.4 million estimated cases worldwide.
The results show that globally, the most common drug use disorders are cannabis dependence, at 22.1 million cases, and opioid dependence, with 26.8 million cases.
“We provide clear comparative analysis of alcohol and drug epidemiology and attributable burden, which has generated clear evidence that both the magnitude and relative contribution of alcohol and drug use vary widely geographically,” senior author Louisa Degenhardt, PhD, professor of epidemiology and principle research fellow, National Health and Medical Research Council, National Drug and Alcohol Research Center, University of New South Wales, told Medscape Medical News.
“Existing interventions that are known to reduce the varied causes of burden exist, but the challenge is to scale up these interventions, which remains even in well-resourced settings,” she said.
The study was published online November 1 in Lancet Psychiatry.
Geographic, Economic Differences
Since 1993, estimates of the causes of global disease burden have used disability of adjusted life-years (DALYs), which combine a measure of disease burden caused by premature mortality (years of life lost [YLLs]) and burden due to disability (years of life lived with disability [YLDs]), the authors note.
This comparative risk assessment approach, which was developed for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s global burden of diseases research, “provides a conceptual framework for population risk assessment of exposures to risk factors and their attributable health burden,” the researchers state.
Alcohol and drugs are included as risk factors in this approach.
To calculate global and regional estimates of the prevalence of alcohol and drug dependence and to estimate global disease burden attributable to these conditions, the investigators analyzed data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016.
Studies spanned from 1990 to 2016 and included 195 countries within 21 regions and seven super-regions.
The investigators found that close to 100 million DALYs were attributable to alcohol use, and almost 32 million to drug use. The burden varied substantially across geographical locations, largely because of the effect of substance use on other health patterns.
The alcohol-attributable burden was highest in countries with low and middle-high sociodemographic index (SDI) levels. Drug-related burden increased with higher SDI level.
Source: Medscape
2 comments
So alcohol consumption is not safe?! One would argue driving is not safe either as it my increase the risk of vehicle accidents. ^^
In sciences we talk base on the evidence. It’s the matter of cost and benefit balance. If once driving car becomes a hazardous job, then it is better to be banned.