Alcohol deaths spiked among middle-aged adults, especially women, during pandemic
Deaths from drinking increased during the first year of the pandemic. Women saw a particularly steep increase in alcohol deaths.
Excessive drinking is increasingly killing middle-aged adults — a trend that had been brewing for nearly two decades before it ramped up at an alarming pace when the coronavirus pandemic began.
Alcohol-related deaths rose by 26% from 2019 to 2020, a new report published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds.
The increase was even sharper among women ages 35 to 44, going up by 42% from 2019 to 2020.
The dramatic one-year rise comes after a long period of relatively steady increases in such deaths. From 2000 through 2018, age-adjusted alcohol-related deaths rose yearly, but never at a rate higher than 7%.
But when the pandemic hit, many people greatly increased their drinking.
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