Alcohol-Related Deaths Surged Among Middle-Aged American Women During Pandemic, Study Finds

Paramedics walking into hospital.Photo: Getty

Previously the dramatic rise had never increased at a rate higher than 7% year over year,according to NBC News.

Friday’s report also found that overall the rate of U.S. deaths from 2019 to 2020 rose from 10.4 per 100,000 people to 13.1 per 100,000.

The study correlates to another reportpublished in theJournal of the American Medical Associationin March, in which researchers reviewed death certificates from the Centers for Disease Control for people aged 16 and older and found ones where alcohol was an underlying or contributing cause.

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“We’re not surprised. It’s unfortunate, but we sort of expected to see something like this,” Dr. Aaron White, lead author of the study and a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,told CNNat the time.

White said that the pandemic understandably took a toll on Americans.

“It’s not uncommon for people to drink more when they’re under more duress, and obviously, the pandemic brought a lot of added stress to people’s lives,” he said. “In addition to that, it reduced a lot of the normal outlets people have for coping with stress, [like] social support and access to gyms.”

source: people.com