Alcohol use

In 2018, 10.5% of the total disease burden among Indigenous Australians was due to alcohol use, making it the 2nd leading risk factor contributing to total disease burden.

These estimates reflect the amount of disease burden that could have been avoided if all Indigenous Australians had not consumed alcohol.

Alcohol use contributed to the burden of 30 diseases and injuries including alcohol use disorders, 8 types of cancer, chronic liver disease and 12 types of injury— predominantly road traffic injuries and suicide & self-inflicted injuries (see ABDS 2018 Risk factor estimates for Indigenous Australians data table S1).

How much burden was attributable to alcohol use?

In 2018 among Indigenous Australians, alcohol use was responsible for the entire burden due to alcohol use disorders and 39% of the burden due to liver cancer.

Note that the following visualisation displays the top 10 linked diseases due to alcohol use.

This interactive data visualisation shows the burden attributable to alcohol use among Indigenous Australians by linked disease. The main section shows a horizontal bar graph which can be customised to report data according to year, sex and measure of attributable burden. Each bar represents the attributable burden of the disease linked to alcohol use.

How did burden attributable to alcohol use vary by age and sex?

Indigenous males experienced a greater amount of total burden due to alcohol use than Indigenous females in all age groups in 2018. Alcohol use attributable burden peaked among Indigenous Australians aged between 25 and 44, primarily due to alcohol use disorders and suicide & self-inflicted injuries.

A large amount of the burden attributable to alcohol use was due to alcohol use disorders. Among Indigenous Australians aged between 25 and 44, 50% of the attributable burden (DALY) and 90% of the attributable non-fatal burden (YLD) was due to alcohol use disorders.

This interactive data visualisation shows the amount of burden attributable to alcohol use among Indigenous Australians by age group and linked disease. The main section shows a stacked bar graph which can be customised to report data according to year, sex, disease group and measure of attributable burden. Each bar represents the attributable burden within a particular age group. Each bar is also split into separate components with each colour representing a disease linked to alcohol use.

How has disease burden due to alcohol use changed over time?

The age-standardised rate of total burden due to alcohol use (from all linked diseases) among Indigenous Australians remained relatively stable between 2003 and 2018 (37.1 DALY and 36.8 DALY per 1,000 population, respectively).

This interactive data visualisation shows the rate of burden attributable to alcohol use among Indigenous Australians by year. The main section shows a horizontal bar graph which can be customised to report data according to year, sex and measure of attributable burden. Each bar represents the attributable burden within a particular year due to alcohol use.

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