Fraction of Fatal Accidents Attributable to Alcohol in Russia

Abstract

There is common believe that high level of alcohol consumption in conjunction with binge drinking pattern is a major determinant of accident mortality crisis in Russia. Objective: The aim of the present study was to estimate the fraction of accident mortality attributable to alcohol in Russia using aggregate-level data. Method: Age-standardized sex-specific male and female accident mortality data for the period 1970-2010 and data on overall alcohol consumption were analyzed by means ARIMA (autoregressive integrated moving average) time series analysis. Alcohol consumption was significantly associated with both male and female accident mortality rates: a 1 liter increase in overall alcohol consumption would result in a 7.3% increase in the male accident mortality rate and in 6.2% increase in the female mortality rate. The results of the analysis suggest that 62.4% of all male accident deaths and 56.4% female deaths in Russia could be attributed to alcohol. Conclusions: The outcomes of this study provide support for the hypothesis that alcohol is an important contributor to the accident mortality rate in Russian Federation. The findings from the present study have important implications as regards accident mortality prevention indicating that a restrictive alcohol policy can be considered as an effective measure of prevention in countries where higher rate of alcohol consumption conjunct with binge drinking pattern.