Facts About U.S. Deaths from Excessive Alcohol Use

The basics

Why it's important

• Alcohol is the most common substance used among people 12 and older in the United States.
• Excessive alcohol use—which refers to drinking in ways that can negatively impact health—is a leading preventable cause of death in this country.

U.S. deaths each year (2020–2021)

Excessive alcohol use:

• Caused about 178,000 deaths each year.1
  • This was a 29% increase from just a few years earlier (2016–2017), when there were an estimated 138,000 deaths per year.2
• Shortened the lives of those who died by an average of 24 years.1
  • This resulted in a total of about 4 million years of potential life lost.1

Alcohol-related causes of death

• About two-thirds of alcohol-related deaths (117,000 deaths) were from chronic conditions, which develop from drinking alcohol over time.A1
  • This includes several types of cancer, heart disease, liver disease, and alcohol use disorder.1
• Another one-third of alcohol-related deaths (about 61,000 deaths) were from binge drinking or drinking too much on one occasion.A1
  • Examples include motor vehicle crashes, alcohol-involved drug overdoses, alcohol poisonings, and deaths by suicide.1

Alcohol-related deaths by sex

Alcohol use can affect men and women differently. Each year during 2020–2021, excessive alcohol use led to about:

• 119,600 deaths among boys and men.
• 58,700 deaths among girls and women.

These are increases of 27% among boys and men, and 35% among girls and women from just a few years earlier (2016–2017).

Alcohol-related deaths by age

Alcohol-related deaths increased among all age groups (during 2020–2021) from just a few years earlier (2016–2017).

During 2020–2021, these alcohol-related deaths:

• Usually involved adults 35 and older.
• Included about 4,000 deaths each year among young people (under 21).

Potential reasons for increases in alcohol-related deaths

Many factors may have contributed to these increases in alcohol-related deaths. These include the availability of alcohol, increases in people experiencing mental health conditions, and challenges in accessing health care.

In general:

• Alcohol is easy to access and widely available.
  • Policies in many states have expanded options for carry-out alcohol and home delivery.
  • In many states, places that sold alcohol to drink elsewhere (e.g., liquor stores) were considered essential businesses and they stayed open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Many people (including those with alcohol-related conditions) delayed or couldn't get medical help during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • This includes emergency care for certain alcohol-related conditions that could otherwise have been treated.
• Some people might drink more alcohol when experiencing stress, loneliness, social isolation, or certain mental health conditions.

Measuring alcohol-related deaths

How these deaths were estimated

These estimates are based on U.S. death certificate data. They include deaths where the primary (or underlying) cause of death listed on the death certificate was one of 58 alcohol-related causes.

• If the primary cause of death was not one of those 58 alcohol-related causes, such as COVID-19, it was not included in these estimates.
• For example, it's possible someone died primarily from COVID-19 and secondarily from an alcohol-related cancer. This death would not be included.

58 alcohol-related causes of death

• Some conditions are fully related to alcohol, such as alcohol use disorder and alcohol poisoning. These would not occur without alcohol.
• Other conditions are partly related to alcohol, such as cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
  • This means they are caused by alcohol or other factors.
  • We count only the deaths that are from alcohol. For example, we count the alcohol-related cancer deaths but not other cancer deaths.

Resources

• Ways to lower your and others' risks of alcohol-related harms.
• Information about how proven strategies can prevent alcohol-related harms.
• Data on Excessive Alcohol Use.
• Report on Deaths from Excessive Alcohol Use — United States, 2016–2021.
• Alcohol-Related Disease Impact data for state or national estimates of alcohol-related deaths and years of potential life lost.