Alcohol-related deaths climbing faster among women, CDC study finds

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on deaths from excessive drinking shows a reversal of historic trends, with the rates of deaths from excessive drinking among women now climbing faster than they are among men (Source: “More Women Are Drinking Themselves Sick. The Biden Administration Is Concerned.,” Kaiser Health News, March 28).
 
According the CDC data, deaths from excessive alcohol use increased 34.7% among females from 2016-2017 to 2020-2021, compared to a 26.8% increase for males.
 
More than 600,000 people in the U.S. died from causes related to alcohol from 1999 to 2020, according to research published in JAMA Network Open last year.
 
More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic “significantly exacerbated” binge-drinking, said George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes of Health, as people used alcohol to cope with stress. That is particularly true of women, who are more likely to drink alcohol because of stress than men, he said.