Population Drinking and Homicide Rate in Russia

Abstract

Background: Although high homicide rate in Russia has been discussed widely, current literature seems to lack a consistent understanding of this phenomenon. Objective: The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis of the close aggregate level link between alcohol drinking and homicide deaths in Russia. Method: Age-standardized sex-specific male and female homicide mortality data for the period 1970 to 2013 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 homicide rate: a 1 liter increase in overall alcohol consumption would result in an 11.3% increase in the male homicide rate and in 10.7% increase in the female homicide rate. The results of the analysis suggest that 78.9% of all male homicide deaths and 77.2% female homicide deaths in Russia could be attributed to alcohol. Conclusions: The outcomes of this study provide support for the hypothesis that alcohol is a major contributor to the homicide rate in Russian Federation. These findings have important implications as regards violent 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 and binge drinking pattern.