According to WHO, alcohol kills 2.6 million people a year.

“Unacceptable” figure. Alcohol kills 2.6 million people a year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, for which the figure remains too “high” despite a slight decline in recent years. The UN health agency’s latest report on alcohol and health highlights that alcohol is responsible for nearly one in 20 deaths each year worldwide, including related road traffic accidents, violence, abuse and a host of diseases and disorders.

According to the report, 2.6 million deaths were attributed to alcohol in 2019 (the latest statistics available), or 4.7% of deaths worldwide that year. In France that year, alcohol was responsible for more than 40,000 deaths. Men account for three quarters of these deaths. “Substance use seriously harms human health, increases the risk of chronic disease and mental illness, and tragically leads to millions of preventable deaths every year,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lamented in a message.

People aged 20–39 years are most affected.

In the report, he points to “a distinct decline in alcohol consumption and related diseases since 2010 worldwide.” But “the health and social costs of alcohol abuse remain unacceptably high,” according to the WHO chief, who stresses that it disproportionately affects young people. The highest proportion of alcohol-related deaths in 2019 occurred in the 20-39 age group, accounting for 13% of deaths.

A further 724,000 people died from injuries, including road traffic accidents and self-harm. Alcohol abuse also makes people more vulnerable to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS and pneumonia. In 2019, approximately 209 million people were living with alcohol dependence, or 3.7% of the world’s population.

Consumption overall has decreased

At the same time, individual annual consumption fell slightly to 5.5 liters in 2019, compared with 5.7 liters nine years earlier, according to the report. But consumption is unevenly distributed around the world, with more than half of the world’s population over the age of 15 abstaining completely from alcohol. Europe has the highest consumption, with an average of 9.2 liters of alcohol per year, followed by America with 7.5 liters. The report explains that consumption levels are lowest in predominantly Muslim countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The average drinker consumed 27 grams of alcohol per day in 2019, according to the report. This is roughly equivalent to two glasses of wine, two beers, or two shots of spirits. “This level and frequency of consumption is associated with a higher risk of contracting many diseases and the mortality and disability that accompanies them,” WHO warns.

In 2019, 38% of heavy drinkers admitted to having episodes of binge drinking, defined as drinking at least 60g of pure alcohol one or more times during the previous month.

More than 45% of Europeans aged 15–19 consider themselves alcohol abusers.

Globally, 23.5% of adolescents aged 15–19 years are considered heavy drinkers. But this figure rises to more than 45% for people of this age living in Europe and almost 44% for those living in America. Given the scale of the problem, WHO points out the urgent need to improve access to quality treatment for substance use disorders.

In 2019, the proportion of people in contact with drug treatment services ranged from less than 1% to a maximum of 35%, depending on the country studied. “Stigma, discrimination and misconceptions about the effectiveness of treatment contribute to these serious gaps in access to treatment,” – Vladimir Poznyak, head of the department of alcohol, drugs and addictive behavior at WHO.