Search resultsRacial and ethnic differences in all-cause mortality risk according to alcohol consumption patterns in the national alcohol surveys
Title
Racial and ethnic differences in all-cause mortality risk according to alcohol consumption patterns in the national alcohol surveys
Publication type
Journal Article
Year of Publication
2011
Authors
Journal
American Journal of Epidemiology
Volume
174
Issue
7
Pagination
769 - 778
Date published
2011
ISBN
00029262 (ISSN)
Keywords
Adult, African Americans, Aged, alcohol, alcohol abstinence, alcohol consumption, Alcohol Drinking, alcohol metabolism, Alcoholism, cause of death, Continental Population Groups, controlled study, data set, demography, Depression, drinking, drinking behavior, drug user, ethnic difference, ethnic group, Ethnic Groups, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, follow up, genetic variation, health impact, health survey, Health Surveys, Hispanic, Hispanic Americans, human, Humans, Interviews as Topic, major clinical study, male, mental health, Middle Aged, mortality, mortality risk, Nicotiana tabacum, numerical model, proportional hazards model, Proportional Hazards Models, race difference, racial disparity, review, sampling, socioeconomics, tobacco, tobacco dependence, United States
Abstract
Previous studies have found J-shaped relations between volume of alcohol consumed and mortality risk in white Americans but not in African Americans, suggesting the need for studies in which race/ethnicity-defined subgroups are analyzed in separate comparable models. In the present study, the authors utilized mortality follow-up data (through 2006) on respondents from the 1984 and 1995 National Alcohol Surveys, including similar numbers of black, white, and Hispanic respondents by oversampling the minority groups. Cox proportional hazards models controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, mental health, and drug-and tobacco-use measures were used to estimate mortality risk from all causes. Findings indicated a protective effect of moderate alcohol drinking (2-30 drinks/month for women and 2-60 drinks/month for men) with no monthly ≥5-drink days) relative to lifetime abstention for whites only. Elevated mortality risk relative to moderate drinking was found in former drinkers with lifetime alcohol problems. Moderate drinkers who consumed ≥5 drinks in 1 day at least monthly were also found to have increased risk, suggesting the importance of identifying heavy-occasion drinking for mortality analyses. These differential results regarding lifetime abstainers may suggest bias from differential unmeasured confounding or unmeasured aspects of alcohol consumption pattern or may be due to genetic differences in the health impact of alcohol metabolism.