The World Health Organization reported on Tuesday that alcohol kills around three million people yearly, and that although the death rate has somewhat decreased recently, it is still “unacceptably high.”
According to the most recent study on alcohol and health from the United Nations health agency, alcohol is responsible for almost one in every twenty deaths worldwide each year due to drunk driving, alcohol-related violence and abuse, and a host of other illnesses and disorders.
According to the analysis, alcohol intake was linked to 2.6 million fatalities in 2019 (the most recent data available), which represents 4.7% of all deaths globally in that year.
It stated that men made up about three-quarters of the fatalities.
“Substance use severely harms individual health, increasing the risk of chronic diseases, mental health conditions, and tragically resulting in millions of preventable deaths every year,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
He pointed out that there had been “some reduction in alcohol consumption and related harm worldwide since 2010”.
“(But) the health and social burden due to alcohol use remains unacceptably high,” he continued, highlighting that younger people were disproportionately affected.
The WHO reported that those between the ages of 20 and 39 accounted for the largest percentage of alcohol-related deaths in 2019 (13%).
