The Relationship between Drinking Patterns and Chronic Health Conditions: New Evidence from Two US National Alcohol Surveys.

Abstract

The association of many chronic disease conditions with alcohol consumption is well established, and research on drinking patterns following diagnosis suggests that those with a chronic condition drink less than their healthy counterparts. However, these studies have not controlled for confounding influences on this relationship. This paper reports current drinking patterns of those with one of four chronic disease conditions (hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer) compared to those without, controlling for covariates. Data were analyzed from a merged sample of the two National Alcohol Surveys of the US adult population (2014-15 and 2019-20) (n=9,597). Those reporting any one of the four disease conditions were matched to healthy control respondents on demographic characteristics and history of drinking using propensity score weighting (PSW). Those with hypertension and heart disease appeared to drink less than controls during the last year, but after models were adjusted for covariates or PSW, no significant differences were found. For diabetes, only the PSW models showed no significance difference in drinking from controls, while both unadjusted and adjusted models for cancer showed no differences from controls. Controlling for covariates and PS weighting appeared to make cases and their healthy controls more similar in past year drinking patterns. Observed similarity in drinking patterns of those with and without a chronic disease may serve as an impetus for a greater focus on screening and identification of those with chronic conditions who would benefit from focused harm reduction messages and implementation of effective alcohol interventions.