Alcohol consumption and sustainable development

Abstract

Alcohol is a psychoactive and dependence-producing substance that is classified as a Group 1 human carcinogen and has a significant global impact on population health (1,2). Harmful use of alcohol is broadly defined as “drinking that causes detrimental health and social consequences for the drinker, the people around the drinker and society at large, as well as patterns of drinking that are associated with increased risk of adverse health consequences”. This definition references effects beyond clinical context, highlighting that alcohol use is one of the leading risk factors for population ill health, disability and death worldwide. It emphasizes that alcohol affects not only consumers but also many third parties, including victims of road crashes or violence and children born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders or in families with parental alcohol problems; alcohol use also leads to increased health-care costs and productivity losses. Alcohol is recognized as a cause for more than 200 diseases and injuries in the International Classification of Diseases, with at least 40 diseases and injuries being 100% attributable to alcohol (1,5). The burden of alcohol-attributable mortality stems from two broader categories: the chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs; neurological disorders, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and cirrhosis of the liver) and the acute group of unintentional and intentional injuries (1,6). Adverse effects of alcohol consumption are visible even in early life, being one of the leading causes of premature mortality in road traffic accidents, falls, drowning, suicides and other external causes. In the WHO European Region, close to one in four deaths of young adults aged 20–24 years is caused by alcohol. The WHO Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, negotiated and agreed by all Member States in 2010, represents the international consensus that reducing the harmful use of alcohol and its associated health and social burden is a public health priority. The European action plan to reduce the harmful use of alcohol 2012–2020 (EAPA) complements the Global Strategy and gives tailored guidance for Member States of the WHO European Region.