Glossary:Alcohol-related death
The alcohol-related death, is not an agreed international definition and different definitions might be used at national level. The cause of death codes used and the disease names should always be indicated in statistical tables and surveys on alcohol-related deaths.
Eurostat uses in its 'Atlas of mortality the following grouping (entries 8, 9, 29, and 44 of the European shortlist of causes of death):
- malignant neoplasm of lip, oral cavity, pharynx,
- malignant neoplasm of oesophagus,
- alcohol abuse (including alcoholic psychosis) and
- chronic liver disease
WHO uses the following explanations in Health for all data base:
"The mortality from combined, selected causes of death which are known from literature to be related to alcohol consumption. It has to be pointed out that it is relatively rough indicator and it is NOT the estimate of alcohol-attributable mortality, which is more complex and difficult to calculate. Some known alcohol-related causes are not included, as they are not available separately in the mortality data files reported to WHO (mainly when causes were coded using ICD-9 Basic Tabulation List or the list of 175 causes used in countries of former USSR). In addition, for some country-years some components of the sum may be missing causing trend breaks. This simple pooling of alcohol-related deaths (irrespective of what is the actual proportion of deaths due to alcohol in each cause) can help to better rank countries by 6 alcohol-related mortality and can be used to better track trends in deaths associated with alcohol than using separate causes."