United States: As per the latest official reports, US alcohol consumption escalated during COVID-19 and has remained high afterward, which can have dangerous consequences on health.
The figures suggest the rise in 2022, with heavy drinking going up by 20%.
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This trend spanned across most demographics, though the most significant increase touched the 40-49 years group.
The increased stress as a result of the pandemic may have brought about the normalization of drinking, leading to the persistence of higher levels of alcohol consumption.
Due to this issue becoming more rampant in the general population, health professionals require more screening and interventions to be conducted, neurosciencenews.com reported.
Heavy drinking menace
Heavy use increased from 2018 to 2020 by 20% and any use by 4%. These rises were maintained in 2022.
Twelve-month prevalence rates increased significantly for any alcohol use in each age group and gender among White, Black, Hispanic, and multi-racial individuals, but not Native American or Asian individuals.
The largest age group in our study that showed a significant increase in the heavy use of alcohol included adults 40-49 years of age.
According to Brian P. Lee, MD, MAS, a hepatologist and liver transplant specialist with Keck Medicine of USC and principal investigator of the study, “These numbers reflect an alarming public health issue that could result in severe health consequences for far too many people,” neurosciencenews.com reported.
“Our results suggest men and women under 50 are at special risk,” Lee added.
The CDC considers alcohol consumption a major and entirely preventable public health issue that sends Americans to the hospitals and causes their deaths.
Furthermore, Lee stated that alcohol accounts for half of all liver mortality cases and that alcohol-caused cirrhosis has become the leading reason for liver transplants.
In order to come up with their conclusions, NM researchers used the health data collected from the National Health Interview Survey – one of the most extensive health surveys in the United States.
The survey included details on alcohol use as well as other demographic and socioeconomic characteristic datasets of over 24,000 adults aged 18 or over.
They did a comparison of the 2018 with 2020 alcohol use statistics and then compared the 2018 with 2022 alcohol use.
The study considered the year 2022 as post-pandemic as behaviors were gradually going back to normalcy after the pandemic declared by the United States of America Department of Health and Human Services ended in May 2023.