New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that alcohol causes 5 percent of deaths worldwide.
The data, part of a report from the World Health Organization, shows that about 2.3 million of those deaths in 2016 were of men and that almost 29% of all alcohol-caused deaths were due to injuries, including traffic accidents and suicide.
The report comes out every four years and shows the impact of alcohol on public health around the world. It shows, among other things, that roughly three million deaths in 2016 could be attributed to alcohol, of which 2.3 million were men and 29 percent were caused by injuries resulting from alcohol, rather than health problems.
The ‘harmful use’ of alcohol leads to about 3 million deaths annually — about six every minute — and the vast majority of those deaths, 2.3 million, are suffered by men. Among people ages 20 to 39, alcohol is responsible for about 13.5 percent of all deaths.
The total population of current drinkers is estimated to be 2.3 billion, with more than half of them in three WHO regions: the Americas, Europe, and the Western Pacific. Europe has the highest per capita consumption in the world, even though that has decreased by more than 10 percent since 2010.
The report predicts that in the next 10 years, global alcohol per capita consumption is set to increase, particularly in Southeast Asia and Western Pacific Regions and the Region of the Americas.