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

Abstract

Within the global context, Eastern Europe has been repeatedly identified as the area with the highest levels of alcohol‐related health harms. Although the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed soon afterwards, alcohol‐related mortality in Eastern Europe remains far higher than in Western Europe. However, despite the high burden of alcohol harm and mortality in Eastern Europe, with the partial exception of Russia, relatively little is known about the country‐specific impact of alcohol on health and mortality and the various policy responses to it. In response to this, an international symposium was held in Vilnius, Lithuania in June 2017 entitled Persisting burden of alcohol in Central and Eastern Europe: recent evidence and measurement issues. This special section of Drug and Alcohol Review is based on a selection of the papers presented at this symposium, providing for the first time a broad overview of the problem of alcohol‐related mortality in a diverse range of Eastern European countries linked to a description and analysis of alcohol control initiatives that have been developed. While there is strong evidence of the influence of history, culture and education across European countries having a profound and persistent effect on differences in drinking patterns and preferences, there is, nevertheless, evidence that effective policy responses have been mounted in a range of countries.

Alcohol‐related mortality in four European countries: A multiple‐cause‐of‐death study

“…Overall alcohol-related mortality for men, based on the underlying causes of death, was the highest in Poland (58 deaths per 100,000), followed by Austria (51), Czechia (43) and Spain (20). Female mortality was at a very similar level in Austria, Czechia and Poland (16 deaths per 100,000) and substantially lower in Spain (5). For both sexes, alcoholrelated mortality based on MCoD proved to be approximately double the mortality by the underlying causes in three countries: Austria, Czechia and Spain.…”

“…Alcohol consumption and drinking patterns are heterogeneous across Europe [1,2]. As compared to the Western part of the continent, in Central and Eastern Europe alcohol consumption is higher and drinking patterns are riskier, including irregular heavy drinking episodes and a preference for spirits [3][4][5][6]. This contributes to more elevated levels of alcohol-related mortality as compared to Western Europe and limits life expectancy growth in Central and Eastern Europe [7].…”

Knowledge of Alcohol as a Risk Factor for Liver Disease Among Patients With Chronic Hepatitis C

“…East European region is one of the excessive alcohol drinking regions in the world (Jasilionis et al, 2020).…”

Are restrictions in sales hours of alcohol associated with fewer emergency room visits in Lithuania? An interrupted time‐series analysis

“…Concretely, we hypothesised that, first, reduced availability of alcoholic beverages would lead to fewer ER visits in general, and in fewer injury-related and alcohol-poisoning ER visits in particular. Injury is the typical outcome for studies on availability (see reviews above) and alcohol poisoning was added as a typical marker for 100% alcohol-attributable burden in the region [21,22]. Second, we postulated that the effect would be most pronounced on Sundays and Mondays, where the availability restrictions were the most pronounced (Monday was added as alcohol-attributable ER visits are most notable during nighttime-e.g., [23]-to include the full night following Sunday).…”