The effect of acute alcohol use on injury risk is well documented, but the relationship between drinking history and fatal injury has not been adequately studied. The authors performed a case-control analysis to explore the association between drinking history and specific causes of fatal injury. Cases (n = 5549) were persons who died from injury, selected from the 1993 National Mortality Followback Survey (NMFS); controls (n = 42,698) were a representative sample of the general population, selected from the 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES). Current drinkers comprised 59% of the cases compared with 44% of the controls. After adjustment for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, marital status, employment, and drug use, the odds ratio (OR) of dying from drowning for current drinkers was 3.48 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.94, 6.25), the highest among all causes of injury studied. The lowest adjusted odds ratio associated with current drinking was for falls (OR = 1.38; 95% CI = 1.05, 1.82). Being a current drinker increased the risk of dying from suicide more for females (OR = 4.04; 95% CI = 1.64, 9.93) than for males (OR = 1.45; 95% CI = 1.20, 1.74). The authors conclude that drinking history is associated with a significantly increased risk of all types of fatal injury. (A) "Reprinted with permission from Elsevier".
Abstract