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Global alcohol consumption

Drinking habits

Feb 14th 2011, 13:01 by The Economist online

A map of world alcohol consumption

THE world drank the equivalent of 6.1 litres of pure alcohol per person in 2005, according to a report from the World Health Organisation published on February 11th. The biggest boozers are mostly found in Europe and in the former Soviet states. Moldovans are the most bibulous, getting through 18.2 litres each, nearly 2 litres more than the Czechs in second place. Over 10 litres of a Moldovan's annual intake is reckoned to be 'unrecorded' home-brewed liquor, making it particularly harmful to health. Such moonshine accounts for almost 30% of the world's drinking. The WHO estimates that alcohol results in 2.5m deaths a year, more than AIDS or tuberculosis. In Russia and its former satellite states one in five male deaths is caused by drink.


Readers' comments

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2mzC4FQkyw

Even though i remain sceptical of the statistical data provided above i beleive that the increased consumption in those areas could be due to the extremely cold weather conditions and rather lonley social setting.

guest-iiweolo

I´m from Argentina but presently living in Sweden. I totally disagree with this report when comparing the statistics for this two countries. Everyone knows the big issue that is alcohol consumption in scandinavian countries, specially Sweden (you can easily see it on the subway during weekends, ranging from teenagers to elder) and this is not a consequence of drinking beer but of drinking spirits drinks. Hard to believe the veracity of this report!! or maybe Sweden was very different in 2005 ;)

Jacovich

The study should have been carried out distinguishing between "soft" and hard liquor. Soft liquor, like wine, explains Argentina and Australia as well as many countries in Western and Central Europe.

EU Mix

Western Balkans drinking less than central Europe.... curious finding?... Is it because the alcohol production is home based (ei. not taxed or registered), or because people buy in duty frees of Austria and Hungary (which would push the consumption there) or perhaps because people stop counting after first three glasses (local expression) or because Bosnians made everybody believe it is their neighbours who drink more than them?... or perhaps Greeks made the report for all of us (thanks, if so..)... so that at least we look sober while our state economies are going to hell...

PS: I personally think that Serbians Croatians and Bosnians should definitely be the same colour there… any thoughts?

StaleVariety

Those commenting on how the statistics aren't accurate for Moldova probably have limited experience there. I lived with a Moldovan winemaker in a small village for two years during development work, and these statistics do not surprise me at all.

Moldovan's do indeed make wine, but the homemade version is more alcoholic than western wine, and Moldovan's drink far more of it (indeed, wine is traditionally drunk in shot form in Moldova, as opposed to a western wine glass). Children drink to drunkenness regularly in the most remote villages, starting as early as the age of 14

But more importantly there is another homemade brew that is comparable to moonshine - Racu. It's a traditional drink made from wine or other fruits, and every family has their own recipe.

That said, Moldova does have an extremely interesting wine culture, and professional wine cellars with products that rival any in the world. However, in the villages, alcoholism and alcohol related health problems and deaths are pervasive.

Alcoholism

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mike2197

Drinking alcohol only makes you "feel" warmer while actually dropping your body temperature. It does makes sense though people in colder climates are stuck inside more or they go to the pub where it's warm inside.

jiwsong

Wait, does anyone else notice the bright red spot for South Korea? It is the only non-European country to achieve(?) greater than 12 liter/person consumption.

L'Amandine

This is upsetting for several reasons which are not worth enumerating fully as there simply isn't enough space. Do you want to know how much the Brits or the Russians really drink? Simple aggregate statistics are not sufficient to help determine who the world's biggest or most keen drinkers are. how much do the British really drink? And more important, are Russians really in Fourth Place? I read this article today and I would like to quote from it as i couldn't have put it in better words:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/a-lesson-in-drinking/43210...

' Do you know how much alcohol you drink in a given week? Helpfully, the WHO data allows us to translate gross consumption figures. If we think in terms of the standard half-liter bottle of 80-proof (40 percent alcohol) vodka, conventional 750 ml bottles of wine at 12 percent alcoholic content, and the international standard-size 0.35 liter bottles of 5 percent alcohol beer, the WHO data paints the following picture:

Every week, the average drinking Russian man downs 13 bottles of beer and more than two bottles of vodka. That’s the average. Week in, week out, two bottles of vodka and 13 bottles of beer for every drinking man across Russia. Or think of it this way: almost a third of a bottle of vodka and two beers every single day.

...

What about the supposed world-champion Moldovans? Given its long history of viniculture, the Moldovan drinking culture is more akin to the steady wine-drinking nations of the Mediterranean: Moldovans drink more wine than vodka, there is a smaller percentage of teetotalers, and women make up more of the overall consumption statistics. As a consequence, the average Moldovan man drinks only 32 liters of alcohol per year — quite a bit less than his counterparts in Russia and Ukraine.
...
The difference between drinking patterns between Moldova and its vodka-swilling Slavic neighbors is telling. While the average male life expectancy in Russia is 59.5 years and 62.3 years in Ukraine, in Moldova it is 67.4. Demographers and health experts are in wide agreement that not only is the quantity of alcohol consumed an important influence on health, but so too is the type of alcohol and the manner in which it is consumed. Instead of steady, measured consumption, Russians binge to excess.
...Rather than scoffing at the Moldovans for ranking first in the WHO report, Russians could actually learn something from them. Indeed, in terms of the impact of drinking patterns on population health, it would seem that one of the best things the average Russian man could do would be to put down one of his two weekly bottles of vodka and pick up a bottle of wine instead. Or better yet, put down one of the bottles and don’t pick up anything else at all as we celebrate International Women’s Day.

GoGeo

Thats a good map and shows some interesting trends. Essentially Europe and Russia seem to have the larges alcohol consumption with N. America being lower surprisingly.

I have just added a dataset to www.sharegeo.ac.uk on the discharges rates from Scottish hospitals for alcohol related admissions. You can download the data here and i have included a handy map if you dont want to create one yourself. http://hdl.handle.net/10672/162

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