The burden of disease concept represents the impact of living with illness and injury and dying prematurely. Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability globally. It is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. It is the leading risk factor for premature mortality and disability among those aged 15 to 49 years. Another concerning observation is that the disadvantaged and especially vulnerable populations have higher rates of alcohol-related death and hospitalization.

Watch the video below to get an overview of the global burden due to alcohol.

Levels of alcohol consumption can be measured using several indicators. One is the prevalence (or the number) of current drinkers or abstainers in a country or region. Current drinkers are the people who have consumed alcoholic beverages in the previous 12-month period. Lifetime abstainers are the people who have never consumed alcohol.

Heavy episodic drinking (HED) is defined as 60 or more grams of pure alcohol on at least one single occasion at least once per month). The other indicators are total alcohol per capita consumption in litres of pure alcohol per person per year.

The graphs below depict the data on the current drinkers (population aged 15+ years); lifetime abstainers (population aged 15+ years); Heavy Episodic Drinking (among total population aged 15+ years); Heavy Episodic Drinking (among current drinkers aged 15+ years) for the world and South East Asia Region (SEAR).

The prevalence of alcohol use disorders (alcohol dependence and harmful use of alcohol) among males and females varies across the member states in South East Asia Region. The 12-month prevalence estimates for alcohol use disorders (alcohol dependence and harmful use of alcohol) among females and males aged 15+ years across the member states in SEAR is given below.

Projected total alcohol per capita consumption (APC) (among total population aged 15+ years) in litres of pure alcohol in SEAR

• Source/ References: Global status report on alcohol and health 2018. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0IGO.GBD 2016 Alcohol and Drug Use Collaborators. The global burden of disease attributable to alcohol and drug use in 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet Psychiatry. 2018 Dec;5(12):987-1012. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30337-7. Epub 2018 Nov 1. Erratum in: Lancet Psychiatry. 2019 Jan;6(1):e2. PMID: 30392731; PMCID: PMC6251968.https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcoholhttps://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/259831/9789290225348-en.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Retrieved 12 March 2021.