Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor in the global burden of disease, with overall volume of exposure as the principal underlying dimension. Two main sources of data on volume of alcohol exposure are available: surveys and per capita consumption derived from routine statistics such as taxation. As both sources have significant problems, this paper presents an approach that triangulates information from both sources into disaggregated estimates in line with the overall level of per capita consumption.
The triangulation of survey data with aggregated per capita consumption data proved feasible and allowed for modeling of alcohol exposure disaggregated by sex, age, and ethnicity. These models can be used in combination with risk relations for burden of disease calculations. Sensitivity analyses showed that the gamma distribution chosen yielded very similar results in terms of fit and alcohol-attributable mortality as the other tested distributions.
Modeling alcohol consumption via the gamma distribution was feasible. To further refine this approach, research should focus on the main assumptions underlying the approach to explore differences between volume estimates derived from surveys and per capita consumption figures.
Read Full Text (PDF)
_________________________________________
