A World Health Organization (WHO) report finds 13.5% of deaths among people in their 20s are linked to alcohol consumption.
Over 3 million people died from alcohol consumption in 2016, equating to 1 in 20 deaths globally, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.
More than 75% of these deaths were among men, says the report, published Friday. The report, which comes out every four years, reveals the continued impact of alcohol on public health around the world, and highlights that the young bear the brunt: 13.5% of deaths among people in their 20s are linked to booze, with alcohol responsible for 7.2% of premature deaths overall.
It also stresses that harm from drinking is greater among poorer consumers than wealthier ones.
While the proportion of deaths worldwide that have been linked to alcohol has fallen to 5.3% since 2012, when the figure was at 5.9%, experts say the findings make for sobering reading.
“The alcohol consumption level continues to be very high,” says Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, WHO’s Management of Substance Abuse coordinator. “All countries can do much more to reduce the health and social costs of the harmful use of alcohol.”
“Unfortunately, the implementation of the most effective policy options is lagging behind the magnitude of the problems,” he says, adding that projections suggested both worldwide alcohol consumption and the related harms were set to rise in the coming years.
“Governments need to do more to meet the global targets and to reduce the burden of alcohol on societies; this is clear, and this action is either absent or not sufficient in most of the countries of the world,” says Poznyak.
Though 95% of countries impose taxes on alcohol, WHO expects more actions to be undertaken by countries, adding that fewer than half of them use other price strategies such as banning below-cost selling or volume discounts.
