Alcohol consumption causes injury in a dose–response manner. The most common mode of sustaining an alcohol-attributable injury is from a single occasion of acute alcohol consumption, but much of the injury literature employs usual consumption habits to assess risk instead.
An analysis of the acute dose–response relationship between alcohol and injury is warranted to generate single occasion- and dose-specific relative risks.
A systematic literature review and meta-analysis was conducted to fill this gap. Linear and best-fit first-order model were used to model the data. Usual tests of heterogeneity and publication bias were run. Separate meta-analyses were run for motor vehicle and non-motor vehicle injuries, as well as case–control and case–crossover studies.
The risk of injury increases non-linearly with increasing alcohol consumption. For motor vehicle accidents, the odds ratio increases by 1.24 (95% CI: 1.18–1.31) per 10-g in pure alcohol increase to 52.0 (95% CI: 34.50–78.28) at 120 g. For non-motor vehicle injury, the OR increases by 1.30 (95% CI: 1.26–1.34) to an OR of 24.2 at 140 g (95% CI: 16.2–36.2).
Case–crossover studies of non-MVA injury result in overall higher risks than case–control studies and the per-drink increase in odds of injury was highest for intentional injury, at 1.38 (95% CI: 1.22–1.55).
Efforts to reduce drinking both on an individual level and a population level are important. No level of consumption is safe when driving and less than 2 drinks per occasion should be encouraged to reduce the risk of injury.
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