Guess how many people are estimated to die each year from Alcohol in the US

[LongHaul]

Guess how many people are estimated to die each year from Alcohol in the US:

 

88,000

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm

 

Much more than I would have guessed.  Pass the carbonated water

[LC]

There's about 135MM drinkers in the US. Based on a 75 year lifespan you have a 4.8% cumulative probability (well, kind of) from dying from alcohol over your lifetime.

[rkbabang]

I wouldn’t have guessed that it was that high.  Looking around that site there were other causes of death that I thought would be lower too.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/leadingcauses.html

 

Almost 45,000 suicides?  People talk about the number of gun suicides being 20k or so, I just assumed that was most of them. I don’t think I’ve seen the total number reported or talked about. That is high.

 

Also 161,374 unintentional injury, I wonder if that includes car accidents?  Either way I would have guessed lower.

 

 

[rukawa]

Why should we trust the CDC estimate? I feel like this isn't really very scientific. In proper science you construct a model and then you compare the outputs of your model to reality to assess how good your model is. Its seems to me that the CDC never did that second step.

 

Based on a 75 year lifespan you have a 4.8% cumulative probability (well, kind of) from dying from alcohol over your lifetime.

 

You can get fact sheets for each country here:

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/profiles/en/

 

I have attached the ones for France and the USA.

fra.pdf

usa.pdf

[Cigarbutt]

I have often used CDC data and have found the methods to be strong and reliable.

 

The reports are not predictive in nature as they tend to focus on observational data and use analytical tools to improve the presentation and reporting of the data. Of course, this can always be improved.

 

In this specific case, the mortality data is obtained essentially from the death certificates.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/deaths.htm

 

Other data come from surveys.

 

They describe the limitations of their reports and, for this specific topic, it is likely that the alcohol problem is significantly under appreciated.

https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2014/13_0293.htm

[Sharad]

I wouldn’t have guessed that it was that high.  Looking around that site there were other causes of death that I thought would be lower too.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/leadingcauses.html

 

Almost 45,000 suicides?  People talk about the number of gun suicides being 20k or so, I just assumed that was most of them. I don’t think I’ve seen the total number reported or talked about. That is high.

 

Also 161,374 unintentional injury, I wonder if that includes car accidents?  Either way I would have guessed lower.

 

Sounds low given drinking and driving would be an alcohol related death, n'est pas?

[LongHaul]

Cancer risk from drinking alcohol

 

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet