{"id":257237,"date":"2018-07-15T15:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-07-15T13:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=257237"},"modified":"2018-07-13T14:59:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T12:59:34","slug":"south-africans-are-drinking-themselves-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/257237\/south-africans-are-drinking-themselves-to-death\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans are drinking themselves to death"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study has shown that one in 10 deaths in South Africa can be attributed to alcohol abuse in some way – with men in low income groups the most at risk.<\/p>\n

This was one of the findings in a research paper published by the BMC Medicine<\/a><\/strong> journal recently, where researchers sought to find the link between alcohol abuse and mortality rates across different socio-economic levels in South Africa.<\/p>\n

According to the paper, globally, illness and life expectancy follow a social gradient that puts people of lower socioeconomic status at higher risk of dying prematurely – and alcohol consumption has been shown to be a major contributing factor.<\/p>\n

South Africa is already known to have a drinking problem, with the country ranking among some of the worst in the world for its levels of alcohol consumption<\/a><\/strong> – and when it comes to road deaths, South Africa also has a terrible reputation for the number of fatalities as a result of drunk driving<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Breaking down the data<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the research paper, South Africa has a large drinking population with almost half of all adults being current or binge drinkers (though the majority still abstains). But this is very dependent on the demographics.<\/p>\n

Men are bigger drinkers by a wide margin, across all socio-economic levels. There are proportionally more high-income drinkers – buts it’s the middle and lower-income groups that drink the most, and abuse (binge drink) the most.<\/p>\n

The same applies to women, though at a much lower rate, the data showed. The table below outlines South Africa’s drinking habits by group:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, when looking at mortality rates, its the lower socio-economic levels who are dying alcohol-related deaths. The table below shows the total deaths, and how many injury, infectious disease and chronic disease deaths can be attributable to alcohol.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Overall, approximately 62,300 adults died from alcohol-attributable causes of death in South Africa in 2015. With a total of approximately 529,400 deaths from all causes, roughly one in ten deaths was attributable to alcohol use,” the researchers said.<\/p>\n

“Roughly 60% of all alcohol-attributable deaths (~39,300 deaths) occurred in the low socio-economic group. About a quarter (~17,000 deaths) occurred in the middle group, and roughly 15% (~9000 deaths) in the high SES group.<\/p>\n

“In the higher socio-economic group, deaths due to chronic diseases constituted the largest subcategory of alcohol-attributable deaths. In the middle income group, chronic and infectious diseases contributed approximately the same number of deaths.<\/p>\n

“In the low income group, the majority of the alcohol-attributable deaths occurred due to infectious diseases.”<\/p>\n

Getting worse<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the paper, the approximation of one in 10 (~12%) people dying from alcohol-related causes is much higher than the previous estimate of 7% in 2010, showing that there is a growing problem in the country.<\/p>\n

However, the growth can also be explained by the inclusion of additional causes of death – most notable HIV\/AIDS – into the research. But the problem could worse than the research is able to show.<\/p>\n

Specifically, it’s estimated that 23% of all alcohol consumed in South Africa is unrecorded (ie, in shebeens), which is more likely than not taken in by the lower socio-economic groups.<\/p>\n

This could mean that, while the available data shows that two in ten deaths in the lower income groups can be attributable to alcohol, the number may be higher.<\/p>\n

The researchers said that when looking for ways to change policies or introduce interventions, this needs to be taken into account.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a07 things you need to know about the Western Cape\u2019s massive alcohol clampdown<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study has shown that one in ten deaths in South Africa can be attributed to alcohol abuse in some way – with men in low income groups the most at risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":162363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-257237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257237"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257265,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257237\/revisions\/257265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}