Alcohol‐related male mortality in the context of changing alcohol control policy in Lithuania 2000–2017

Abstract

Introduction and Aims. Over the recent decades, Lithuania has reported very high alcohol-related harm and mortality indicators when compared to other countries. This, among other reasons, led to an adoption of comprehensive evidence-based alcohol control policy measures back in 2007 and 2016. The aim of this study is to examine alcohol-related male mortality in the context of changing alcohol control policies over the period 2000-2017. Design and Methods. The life table decomposition method was applied to estimate to what extent the age groups and causes of death are responsible for changes in male life expectancy in the period 2000-2017. Furthermore, a time series intervention model was used to study the impact of alcohol control measures on alcohol-related mortality. A seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model was fitted. Results. Male life expectancy increased by 6.23 years in the period 2007-2017, mainly due to a decrease in mortality from external causes of death (2.12 years), cardiovascular diseases (1.84 years) and alcohol-related disorders (0.86 years). Reduced male mortality in the 30-64 years age group also contributed to a large increase in male life expectancy during the same period. Discussion and Conclusions. The greatest positive effect of reduced alcohol-related mortality to male life expectancy was observed during the period 2007-2009. It overlaps with the start of implementation of the comprehensive alcohol control measures. However, further research on the impact of different alcohol policy interventions on various outcomes is needed.

Alcohol control policies in Former Soviet Union countries: A narrative review of three decades of policy changes and their apparent effects

“…Preliminary analyses indicate that the introduction of these measures has caused a decline in alcoholrelated mortality, and alcohol-related road traffic injuries and deaths [33,87].…”

“…The Russian mortality crisis of the 1990s, the role of levels of alcohol consumption and prevalence of heavy episodic drinking, pointing to the importance of alcohol control measures to reverse the worrisome trends, remains the best researched area within this field [26][27][28][29][30][31]. Research on alcohol policy and its impact on mortality and population health in other former Soviet republics remains scarce, with some notable exceptions for the Baltic States, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. Most of these studies demonstrate that after the end of the Gorbachev-era interventions, and with independence and more market influences, levels of consumption increased.…”

Alcohol taxation, alcohol consumption and cancers in Lithuania: A case study

“…Unlike the majority of EU Member States (see Estonia for another exception; Pärna, 2020), Lithuania introduced a number of effective alcohol control measures, including higher alcohol tax rates (Rehm et al, 2021). As a result, the overall level of consumption has decreased markedly, associated with decreases in alcohol-attributable mortality and increases in life expectancy (OECD/ European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, 2019;Štelem _ ekas et al, 2021;Stumbrys et al, 2020). This would suggest that such alcohol control policies should be much more widely implemented across Europe (Berdzuli et al, 2020).…”

Impact of alcohol on mortality in Eastern Europe: Trends and policy responses

“…The authors conclude that specific policies aiming at reducing harmful alcohol consumption in lower socioeconomic groups may have a very strong potential to reduce overall mortality burden at the national level [23,24]. Three studies on Estonia, Lithuania and Belarus systematically explore potential links between the most recent alcohol control policies, alcohol consumption and alcohol‐related mortality [25–27]. The reported evidence implies that the majority of alcohol control policies in the three countries have been targeting entire populations and mainly focused on reduction of alcohol affordability via taxation and/or tightening control over the alcohol production and market.…”

“…The measuring of the exact effects of these policies is often complicated due to many confounding factors, such as possible effects of the 2008 financial crisis on affordability of alcohol. However, the Lithuanian experience suggests that introducing these measures led to immediate massive improvement in male life expectancy, with alcohol‐related causes of death making a substantial contribution to this progress [26,28]. Several authors in this section raise concerns about the sustainability of these policies.…”