Alcohol-attributable mortality and its effect on past and future variations in mortality levels and trends

Principal researcher

Sergi Trias Llimós

Type of research

PhD research within the Future Mortality project funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research

Supervisors

dr. Fanny Janssen (RUG) and prof. Leo van Wissen (NIDI)

Summary

Alcohol consumption is one of the main contributors to morbidity and the third most significant cause of premature mortality in the EU. The effect of alcohol on health and mortality depends on two dimensions : the average volume of alcohol consumption and the patterns of drinking. Both dimensions differ among different sexes, generations and countries. For example, the higher prevalence of excessive alcohol consumption and of alcohol-related mortality in Eastern Europe is well known, as well as the recent increase in excessive alcohol consumption among young adults in western European countries. These are the reasons why alcohol-attributable mortality is postulated as one of the main determinants of underlying differences in the overall mortality levels in Europe . Therefore, it is important to analyse the alcohol-attributable mortality and its contribution to past and future variations in mortality levels for, sex, generations and different European countries.

This project is carried out on the population level and combines epidemiological information, demographic techniques and demographic modelling. The first part of the research focuses on collecting the necessary data to carry out and evaluate different methods to estimate alcohol-attributable mortality. An analysis of alcohol-attributable mortality over time, between countries and sexes will be performed using age-period-cohort (APC) analysis and a projection of future trends will be done by APC modelling respectively. Besides, the research will analyse the effect of alcohol on mortality variations using the NIDI mortality model.

This investigation will provide the estimates of alcohol-attributable mortality for different age groups, sexes and countries for past and future generations. And it will figure out the contribution of alcohol consumption in underlying mortality variations between sexes and European countries. These results will be useful for understanding mortality differentials between sexes and countries and they will be useful indicators for preventive policies to reduce the harmful consequences of alcohol in terms of years of life lost.

For output of the PhD research please visit the Future Mortality project website.