Alcohol Poisoning and Cardiovascular Mortality in Russia, 1956-2005

Abstract

Summary - High mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Russia and its profound fluctuations over the past decades have attracted considerable interest. It was emphasized that cardiovascular death played an impor¬tant role in the Russian mortality crisis during the 1990s. The mounting body of evidence points to binge drinking pattern as a potentially important contributor to high cardiovascular mortality rate in Russia. The purpose was to estimate the aggregate level effect of binge drinking on the CVD mortality rate in Russia. Trends in age-adjusted, sex-specific CVD mortality and fatal alcohol poisoning rate (as a proxy for binge drinking) from 1956 to 2005 were analyzed employing an ARIMA analysis in order to asses bivariate relationship between the two time series. The results of the time series analysis indicate the presence of a statistically significant association between the two time series at zero lag for male (r = 0.79; S.E. = 0.14), and for female (r = 0.58; S.E. = 0.14). The results of the present study suggest a positive relation between alcohol and cardiovascular mortality rate at aggregate level and support the hypothesis that alcohol played a crucial role in cardiovascular mortality fluctuation in Russia over the past decades. The findings of this study contribute to the growing body of evidence that suggests that a substantial proportion of cardiovascular deaths in Russia is due to acute effect of binge drinking. Thus, from a public policy point of view, the outcome of this study suggests that cardiovascular-related mortality prevention programs should focus more on addressing the drinking pattern.