Epidemiology of alcohol use in the world and the Czech Republic: consumption, misuse, addiction, morbidity and mortality
Abstract
The text provides basic information on the epidemiology of alcohol use in the world and the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic belongs with Andorra and Estonia among the biggest drinkers in the world.
With regard to patterns of alcohol use among countries, the largest number of abstainers is in Islamic countries and least drinkers are in Europe. Poland and Brazil are among the states with the highest number of people with alcohol dependence.
In the Czech Republic in the general population is approximately 10% of the abstainers, 2 to 3% of Czech population consumes alcohol with such problems that require professional help and fulfil the dependence syndrome criteria, and another 11 to 20% of the population consumes alcohol in a risky way. In comparison with data on treatment seeking only a small percentage of people with disorders caused by alcohol use professional help, treated alcohol users is around less than 28 thousand.
Regarding the number of alcohol related deaths there is moderate trend of increasing the number of deaths affected by alcohol between 1995 and 2002, men and vice versa slight reduction in the number of women.