The 19-year-old who died by suicide was a 2019 graduate of St. Mary’s Dominican High School. Several hours later, the young woman was found dead inside her apartment from an apparent suicide, according to the coroner’s office. That student appears to be linked to a female student who died by suicide later that night. This Fact Sheet is Also Available in the Following Languages Don’t play doctor—cold showers, hot coffee, and walking do not reverse the effects of alcohol overdose and could actually make things worse.
Consistent with the subnational spatial inequality framework (Lobao, 2004; Lobao et al., 2007), we found that relationships between place-level distress and mortality vary widely across the country. Use of these models is supported by Leung tests (Leung et al., 2000), which showed that there is statistically significant spatial non-stationarity in the relationships between the two social vulnerability indices and the four causes of deaths (See Appendix D). Collectively, these methods offer a comprehensive understanding of the national and local relationships between social vulnerability and the four causes of death. Finally, we used geographically weighted regression (GWR) to analyze local variation in relationships between the social vulnerability domains and the four mortality rates.
- The presence of an alcohol use disorder increases suicide risk (Cavanagh et al., 2003, Wilcox et al., 2004).
- Drug poisoning (average APC range, 3.1% to 17.6% per year), suicide (average APC range, 0.3% to 3.6% per year), and alcohol-induced death rates (average APC range, −4.3% to 6.1% per year) increased significantly during 2000 to 2017 in nearly every state and Washington, District of Columbia.
- For example, studies of drug overdoses in specific regions, states, or cities using geographically-weighted regression (GWR) approaches have found that the associations between various place-level exposures and drug mortality rates varied over space (Kerry, Goovaerts, Vowles, & Ingram, 2016; Meng, 2023; Nesoff, Branas, & Martins, 2020; Pustz, Srinivasan, Larochelle, Walley, & Stopka, 2022).
- There were three covariates including age, sex, and co-ingestion, with age dichotomized as 19–65, 13–18 (reference), sex as male, female (reference), and co-ingestion as use of multiple drug classes, single class (reference).
- Finally, there are several potential areas for future research on the association between suicide precipitating circumstances and drinking.
- This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
In the year 2013, the media reported a sharp increase in the number of suicides in Poland (according to the GPHP, the number of suicides increased by about 2000). The system allows for the modification of data when it turns out that the accident was not an attempt. Previously, the data were entered into the system after an investigation and termination of procedures. Until 2013, the statistics of the GPHP always showed the number of suicides, which was about 2000 less than the number reported by the GUS. Differences between the reporting systems lead to the discrepancies in the numbers of suicides, depending on the source of information.
- We used US death certificate data for premature death (ie, ages years) from drug poisonings, suicide, and alcohol-induced causes and conducted hot spot and trend analyses for each cause.
- Winehouse’s death immediately became front-page news.
- Jehovah’s Witnesses allow moderate alcohol consumption among its members.
- The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,” explains Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting Unit Lead for Noncommunicable Disease Management and Regional Advisor for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe.
- “Those who drank, drank heavily in the hour before taking their lives. Fewer than half of those who were alcohol positive at the time of death had a history of alcohol-related problems.”
- Yes, alcohol can cause psychosis.
- We pooled deaths across the six-year period to avoid large fluctuations that can occur with annual rates in small population counties.
Table 2.
From 2013, data were entered immediately after the incident, i.e., when it was established that a suicide attempt took place, and the system allows for their modification if it is determined at a later stage of the proceedings that no suicide attempt took place. The analysis showed that in the analyzed study period alcohol was the most frequently used substance influencing the state of consciousness of the victims of suicide attempts. The total of 161,655 cases of suicide attempts in Poland in 1999–2020 resulted in 106,169 deaths (65.7%). To date, there have been few articles addressing suicide poisoning, and not a single paper has been written that analyzes suicide poisoning statistics over the past 21 years with two data sources. Drug poisoning concerns mostly psychiatric patients and people addicted to drugs and alcohol (they resort to psychotropic drugs when withdrawal symptoms are intensified, or symptoms of acute alcohol intoxication appear) .
Cases of flu-like symptoms in Michigan rated at “very high” by CDC
You might not recognize how much you drink or how many problems in your life are related to alcohol use. Because denial is common, you may feel like you don’t have a problem with drinking. Other ways to get help include talking with a mental health professional or seeking help from a support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous or a similar type of self-help group.
In contrast, alcohol-induced death rates started increasing during 2005 to 2012 (APC, 2.1% 95% CI, 1.5%-2.8% per year) and accelerated to 4.1% (95% CI, 3.3%-4.9%) per year during 2012 to 2017. Drug poisoning death rates increased 11.4% (95% CI, 8.7%-14.2%) per year during 2000 to 2006, 2.5% (95% CI, 0.6%-4.5%) per year during 2006 to 2013, and sharply accelerated to 15.0% (95% CI, 11.8%-18.3%) per year during 2013 to 2017 (eFigure in the Supplement; Table). County-level percentages of people who were unemployed (ie, percentage of civilians aged ≥16 years in the labor force who were unemployed) were ascertained from the 2013 to 2017 Census American Community Survey and classified in quintiles based on population distribution across counties. This cross-sectional study found that demographic characteristics and geographic patterns varied by cause of death, suggesting that increasing death rates from these causes were not concentrated in 1 group or region. Only suicide death rates were highest in rural areas.
Increasing alcohol-induced death rates are consistent with the increasing prevalence of alcohol use, high-risk drinking, and alcohol-use disorders.26,27 As most alcohol-induced deaths were coded as alcoholic liver disease or other conditions driven by chronic alcohol use and progressive liver damage, it is likely that the more recent trends in death rates reflect a mixture of short- and long-term effects of excessive alcohol consumption. In rural counties, suicide rates were highest and exceeded drug poisoning death rates. The most rapid increases were observed in New Hampshire (average APC, 17.6% 95% CI, 5.6%-30.9% per year) and Indiana (average APC, 15.7% 95% CI, 13.7%-17.7% per year) for drug poisoning deaths, North Dakota (average APC, 3.6% 95% CI, 2.9%-4.4% per year) and New Hampshire (average APC, 3.6% 95% CI, 2.6%-4.7% per year) for suicide, and Iowa (average APC, 6.1% 95% CI, 5.4%-6.8% per year) and Nebraska (average APC, 5.5% 95% CI, 4.6%-6.5% per year) for alcohol-induced deaths. For drug poisoning deaths, there were significant clusters of counties with lower death rates that extended from North Dakota and Minnesota south through Texas and then east from Texas to Georgia and South Carolina. We used US death certificate data for premature death (ie, ages years) from drug poisonings, suicide, and alcohol-induced causes and conducted hot spot and trend analyses for each cause. To compare patterns and trends in drug poisoning, suicide, and alcohol-induced death rates by geography and demographic characteristics.
Past studies have found that people bought more alcohol, particularly hard liquor and wine, during the early part of the pandemic. The report also found more men die from excessive alcohol use than women, but women are starting to close the gap. Deaths can also be partially attributable to excessive alcohol use, such as chronic hepatitis and certain cancers, heart disease, and stroke. This study was supported in part by grant R01 AA from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Fourth, diverse national groups were lumped together, especially among Asians, American Indians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics. To the extent that friends and family cannot be contacted or refuse to be interviewed, data on precipitating circumstances cannot be collected.
Drinking deaths are only part of the reason that the Russian demographic picture looks so dire. But the mortality rate surged amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially among men, largely thanks to more drinking. In line with fundamental cause theory, health insurance coverage is a marker of access to health care, which can facilitate treatment for substance use and mental health problems. For example, multi-unit structures and group quarters, such as college dormitories and nursing homes, may be protective against the causes of death we considered in this study because they could be places that reduce social isolation and where residents can derive social support and material resources (Bower et al., 2023).
Women tend to overdose on medications to commit suicide 6,7,8,9,10,11. The most common method of suicide in Poland is hanging, especially among men. Suicide is the act of deliberate taking one’s own life, whereas a suicide attempt is any non-fatal suicide behavior that might have been displayed with or without an intent to take one’s own life .
Seventh, the data are uncontrolled and the presence of a precipitating circumstance is not synonymous with it serving a causal risk factor. Sixth, precipitating circumstances are defined broadly in NVDRS and include behavioral health symptoms, stressful life events or circumstances that may be ongoing or acute, and a history of prior suicide attempts. However, all demographic subgroups had toxicological testing rates at or above 65% except those aged 60 years and older who’s testing rate was slightly lower (62%). Studies where suicide decedents are compared to controls from the community would also add important information to better understand the role of drinking in suicide. Research should focus on the reliability and validity of the post-mortem information collected from family and friends, especially regarding past mental problems, mental health treatment and alcohol problems. Finally, there are several potential areas for future research on the association between suicide precipitating circumstances and drinking.
It’s also in mouthwash, some cooking extracts, some medicines and certain household products. You may worry about what will happen to you or a friend or family member, especially if underage. In some cases, this can lead to a coma and death. The day before Winehouse’s death, she spent time with her mother.
This is especially true of individuals who engage in binge drinking or high-intensity drinking. Ingesting alcohol and other drugs together intensifies their individual effects and could produce an overdose with even moderate amounts of alcohol. Like alcohol, these drugs suppress areas in the brain that control vital functions such as breathing. Even drinking alcohol while taking over-the-counter antihistamines can be dangerous. Age, sensitivity to alcohol (tolerance), sex, speed of drinking, medications you are taking, and amount of food eaten can all be factors.
Impact on your health
County-level predictors of distress (or vulnerability) came from the American Community Survey, 2009–13 to allow for a one-year lag for the association between exposures and mortality (but we note that the values for these predictors change very little from one year to the next given that the ACS is based on a rolling 5-year data collection). Consistent with other studies, we included suicides and homicides involving drug poisoning in the drug poisoning count (Elo, Hendi, Ho, Vierboom, & Preston, 2019; Monnat, 2020; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021). The study period of 2014–2019 enabled us to 1) examine geographic variation in working-age adult mortality during a period when U.S. life expectancy declined (Woolf & Schoomaker, 2019), and 2) avoid large fluctuations that may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic (examining changes in these causes of death during the pandemic was beyond the scope of this study). We focused on working-age adults given the disproportionate contribution of these causes of death to their overall mortality rates and recent declines in life expectancy. Counties are the smallest geographic unit for which mortality data are available for the entire nation (city-level rates are available only for metropolitan areas). For example, studies of drug overdoses in specific regions, states, or cities using geographically-weighted regression (GWR) approaches have found that the associations between various place-level exposures and drug mortality rates varied over space (Kerry, Goovaerts, Vowles, & Ingram, 2016; Meng, 2023; Nesoff, Branas, & Martins, 2020; Pustz, Srinivasan, Larochelle, Walley, & Stopka, 2022).
Poisoning Severity Associated with a Range of Medications in Suicide Attempts by Ingestion
To target interventions to high-risk groups, whether economically, clinically, or public health–focused, it is critical to understand if the highest rates and greatest increases over time in drug poisoning, suicide, and alcohol-induced death rates have occurred in the same demographic groups and geographic areas. We used Global Moran’s I to test whether mortality rates from drug poisoning, suicide, alcohol-induced deaths, and homicide are spatially correlated. We extracted death counts for decedents ages 25–64 by county using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes for drug poisoning (X40-X44, X60-X64, X85, Y10–Y14); suicide (X66-X84, Y87); alcohol-induced deaths (E24.4, G31.2, G62.1, G72.1, I42.6, K70, R78.0, X45, X65, Y15); and homicide (X86-Y09, Y87.1). This cross-sectional study found alarming recent increases in drug poisoning, suicide, and alcohol-induced death rates that differed substantially by demographic and geographic factors in the US. The main strength of our analysis is the use of nationwide death certificate data what causes hangovers to examine patterns and trajectories in drug poisoning, suicide, and alcohol-induced death rates.
BAC can continue to rise even when a person stops drinking or is unconscious. This can increase an individual’s risk of being injured from falls or car crashes, experiencing acts of violence, and engaging in unprotected or unintended sex. Drinking such large quantities of alcohol can overwhelm the body’s ability to break down and clear alcohol from the bloodstream. High-intensity drinking is defined as drinking two or more times the binge-drinking thresholds for women and men.2
A major cause of alcohol poisoning is binge drinking. Alcohol poisoning also can occur when adults or children accidentally or intentionally drink household products that contain alcohol. Alcohol poisoning is a serious — and sometimes deadly — result of drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time.
Precipitating Circumstances of Suicide and Alcohol Intoxication among U.S. Ethnic Groups
The GPHP base their analysis on the KSIP-10 report on suicide attempt/behavior. Data on the number of suicides per year are provided by the General Police Headquarters of Poland (the GPHP) and the Statistics Poland (GUS). In most situations, the poisons used for suicide do not cause any Norco and alcohol characteristic pathological changes or specific clinical symptoms.
Disadvantaged and vulnerable populations have higher rates of alcohol-related death and hospitalization, as harms from a given amount and pattern of drinking are higher for poorer drinkers and their families than for richer drinkers in any given society. And if official Russian statistics are to be believed, birthrates have bounced up a bit, the population is no longer shrinking, and alcohol-related deaths are on the decline. A paper published in 2013 found that relatively high levels of alcohol-related deaths can be found in Russian data going back to the late 19th century. While these are plausible risk factors for natural disasters, they are not conceptually supported vulnerabilities for drug, Amphetamine Drug Profile alcohol, suicide, and homicide mortality. Sixth, although our definition of working age (ages 25–64) is consistent with many other studies, including a recent NASEM report on working-age mortality rates (NASEM 2021), and our sensitivity analyses showed similar results when we included deaths among ages 15–24 in the analyses (which encapsulates the OECD definition) (OECD, 2023), we acknowledge that individuals’ own definitions of working age vary.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bridged-race population estimates (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention & National Center for Health Statistics). The socioeconomic and household distress factors that may contribute to these four fatal social problems result from long processes of geographically uneven development, industrial restructuring, residential segregation, and policy regimes that eroded economic and family stability and mobility (especially for those without a four-year college degree). Both where individuals are located within geographic space (i.e., the spatially unequal distribution of vulnerable or at-risk groups composition) and structural factors within geographic space (context) are important to how inequalities emerge and operate (Burton, Lichter, Baker, & Eason, 2013; Lobao, 2004). Over 40 years ago, Rose (1978) likewise connected spatial differences in homicide rates to “geographies of despair”. The communities of distress and landscapes of despair frameworks lend support to the idea that socioeconomic and household vulnerabilities could manifest into fatal social problems (Feldmeyer et al., 2022; Monnat & Brown, 2017). These relationships between socioeconomic and household resources and “fatal social problems” (Feldmeyer et al., 2022) can be understood within the context of fundamental cause theory (FTC) (Phelan, Link, & Tehranifar, 2010).