1 in 8 deaths among non-elderly adults due to excessive alcohol use

That is the finding from a paper by Afoakwah et al. (2022) in JAMA Open. The authors use 2015-2019 data from the National Vital Statistics System, CDC WONDER, and the CDC’s Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) Application for 58 alcohol-related causes of death. They find that:

During the 2015-2019 study period, of 694 660 mean deaths per year among adults aged 20 to 64 years (men: 432 575 [66.3%]; women: 262 085 [37.7%]), an estimated 12.9% (89 697 per year) were attributable to excessive alcohol consumption. This percentage was higher among men (15.0%) than women (9.4%). By state, alcohol-attributable deaths ranged from 9.3% of total deaths in Mississippi to 21.7% in New Mexico. Among adults aged 20 to 49 years, alcohol-attributable deaths (44 981 mean annual deaths) accounted for an estimated 20.3% of total deaths.

In short, about one in 8 deaths among non-elderly adults is due to excessive alcohol use.