Alcohol-Related Deaths Skyrocketed 25% During First Year of Pandemic

Deaths linked to alcohol rose precipitously during the first year of the pandemic, signaling that the true death toll due to the disease as well as its related disruptions and shutdowns is still being counted.

Alcohol-related deaths jumped 25.5% in 2020 compared to 2019 from 78,927 to 99,017, according to a new report from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism researchers published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That rate of increase outpaced the rate of increase of deaths from all causes, estimated at 16.6%.

“Deaths involving alcohol reflect hidden tolls of the pandemic,” they wrote. “Increased drinking to cope with pandemic-related stressors, shifting alcohol policies, and disrupted treatment access are all possible contributing factors.”

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Using death certificates, the researchers identified the number that listed alcohol as an underlying or contributing cause of death. This includes deaths caused by accidents or diseases exacerbated by heavy alcohol use, such as liver failure. Only a very small proportion of alcohol-related deaths involved COVID-19 directly.

The pandemic-era increase in alcohol-related mortalities far outpaced the rate of increase researchers had been recording over the past two decades. The average annual percent increase in deaths involving alcohol was 2.2% between 1999 and 2017.

Death rates related to alcohol increased across all age groups between 2019 and 2020, though most significantly in adults 35 to 44 at nearly 40%. Deaths in people 25 to 34 rose almost as drastically at 37%. In fact, over twice as many adults 45 and older died in 2020 due to alcohol-related causes than due to COVID-19 directly, according to federal data.

The stress of living through a pandemic and losses sustained because of it have driven up drinking rates across the country. Meanwhile, deaths due to opioid overdoses have also spiked. Early-stage lockdowns and restrictions on movement limited access to in-person support services, such as 12-step meetings for people in recovery. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last summer that fatal drug overdoses in 2020 increased by nearly 30% over the previous year, reaching an all-time high of more than 93,300. Fatal overdoses caused by opioids specifically increased from 50,963 in 2019 to an estimated 69,710 in 2020.

At the onset of the pandemic, adults were suddenly forced to rethink the way they do their jobs and care for children and stay healthy all at the same time. A 2020 Rand Corporation study showed that alcohol consumption among adults over age 30 rose by 14% during the pandemic, with a 41% increase in women heavily drinking.

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The true number of deaths due to COVID-19 is still being calculated. To date, nearly 973,000 deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to the disease. Yet, public health researchers expect the fallout from the past two years to be much greater. The CDC estimated that during the pandemic, there have been more than 1,045,000 excess deaths, a metric used in epidemiology that takes the number of people who die from any cause in any given region and period and then compares it with a historical baseline from recent years.