Alcohol use

In 2018, 4.5% of the total disease burden in Australia was due to alcohol use, making it the 5th leading risk factor contributing to disease burden.

These estimates reflect the amount of disease burden that could have been avoided if all people in the Australian population had not consumed alcohol.

Alcohol use contributed to the burden of 30 diseases and injuries including alcohol use disorders, 8 types of cancer, chronic liver disease and 12 types of injury— predominantly road traffic injuries and suicide & self-inflicted injuries (see ABDS 2018 Risk factor estimates data table).

How much burden was attributable to alcohol use?

Alcohol use was responsible for the entire burden due to alcohol use disorders and 40% of liver cancer.

Note that the following visualisation displays the top 10 linked diseases due to alcohol use.

 

This interactive data visualisation shows the burden attributable to alcohol use by linked disease. The main section shows a horizontal bar graph which can be customised to report data according to year, sex and measure of attributable burden. Each bar represents the attributable burden of the disease linked to alcohol use.

How did burden attributable to alcohol use vary by age and sex?

Males experienced a greater amount of total burden due to alcohol use than females in most age groups. For males, alcohol use attributable burden peaked during ages 25–44, primarily due to alcohol use disorders and suicide & self-inflicted injuries.

By comparison, burden attributable to alcohol use was experienced in older age groups in females, peaking in ages 65–84. The burden experienced was due to a number of diseases including coronary heart disease, breast cancer, liver cancer and chronic liver disease.

A large amount of the burden attributable to alcohol use was due to alcohol use disorders—50% of the attributable burden (DALY) in people aged between 15 and 34, and 87% of attributable non-fatal burden (YLL) between people aged 15 and 44.

This interactive data visualisation shows the amount of burden attributable to alcohol use by age group and linked disease. The main section shows a stacked bar graph which can be customised to report data according to year, sex, disease group and measure of attributable burden. Each bar represents the attributable burden within a particular age group. Each bar is also split into separate components with each colour representing a disease linked to alcohol use.

Did attributable burden vary by socioeconomic group?

Total disease burden attributable to alcohol use was 1.9 times greater in the lowest (most disadvantaged) socioeconomic group compared with the highest (least disadvantaged) group.

This interactive data visualisation shows the rate of burden attributable to alcohol use by socioeconomic group. The main section shows a bar graph which can be customised to report data according to year, sex and measure of attributable burden. Each bar represents the attributable burden within a particular socioeconomic group due to alcohol use.

How has disease burden due to alcohol use changed over time?

The rate of total burden due to alcohol use (from all linked diseases) decreased by 9.9% between 2003 and 2018 (from 9.5 DALY to 8.5 DALY per 1,000 population).

This interactive data visualisation shows the rate of burden attributable to alcohol use by year. The main section shows a horizontal bar graph which can be customised to report data according to year, sex and measure of attributable burden. Each bar represents the attributable burden within a particular year due to alcohol use.