A narrative review of alcohol consumption as a risk factor for global burden of disease

Jürgen Rehm; Sameer Imtiaz

doi:10.1186/s13011-016-0081-2

A narrative review of alcohol consumption as a risk factor for global burden of disease

Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy. 2016 Oct 28;11(1):37. doi: 10.1186/s13011-016-0081-2.

Authors

Jürgen Rehm^{1

2

3

4

5

6}, Sameer Imtiaz^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, CAMH, 33 Russell Street, T505, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S1, Canada. jtrehm@gmail.com.
² Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, CAMH, 250 College Street, Toronto, ON, M5T 1R8, Canada. jtrehm@gmail.com.
³ Institute of Medical Science (IMS), University of Toronto, Medical Sciences Building, 1 King's College Circle, Room 2374, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada. jtrehm@gmail.com.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, 250 College Street, 8th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5T 1R8, Canada. jtrehm@gmail.com.
⁵ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College Street, 6th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5T 3M7, Canada. jtrehm@gmail.com.
⁶ Institute for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, TU Dresden, Chemnitzer Str. 46, 01187, Dresden, Germany. jtrehm@gmail.com.
⁷ Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, CAMH, 33 Russell Street, T505, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S1, Canada.
⁸ Institute of Medical Science (IMS), University of Toronto, Medical Sciences Building, 1 King's College Circle, Room 2374, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada.

Abstract

Since the original Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) for alcohol consumption as part of the Global Burden of Disease Study for 1990, there had been regular updates of CRAs for alcohol from the World Health Organization and/or the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. These studies have become more and more refined with respect to establishing causality between dimensions of alcohol consumption and different disease and mortality (cause of death) outcomes, refining risk relations, and improving the methodology for estimating exposure and alcohol-attributable burden. The present review will give an overview on the main results of the CRAs with respect to alcohol consumption as a risk factor, sketch out new trends and developments, and draw implications for future research and policy.

Keywords: Alcohol; Average level of consumption; Burden of disease; Cause of death; Comparative risk assessment; Global; Patterns of drinking; Relative risk.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Alcohol Drinking / adverse effects*
Alcohol Drinking / mortality*
Cause of Death
Global Burden of Disease / statistics & numerical data*
Global Burden of Disease / trends*
Health Policy / trends*
Humans
Risk Assessment
Risk Factors

Grants and funding

HHSN267200700041C/AA/NIAAA NIH HHS/United States