Association between public health policies on alcohol and worldwide cancer, liver disease and cardiovascular disease outcomes

Background & Aims: The long-term impact of alcohol -related public health policies (PHPs) on disease burden is unclear. We aimed to assess the association between alcohol -related PHPs and alcohol -related health consequences. Methods: We conducted an ecological multi -national study including 169 countries. We collected data on alcohol -related PHPs from the WHO Global Information System of Alcohol and Health 2010. Data on alcohol -related health consequences between 2010-2019 were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease database. We classified PHPs into five items, including criteria for low, moderate, and strong PHP establishment. We estimated an alcohol preparedness index (API) using multiple correspondence analysis (0 lowest and 100 highest establishment). We estimated an incidence rate ratio (IRR) for outcomes according to API using adjusted multilevel generalized linear models with a Poisson family distribution. Results: The median API in the 169 countries was 54 [IQR 34.9-76.8]. The API was inversely associated with alcohol use disorder (AUD) prevalence (IRR 0.13; 95% CI 0.03-0.60; p = 0.010), alcohol -associated liver disease (ALD) mortality (IRR 0.14; 95% CI 0.03-0.79; p = 0.025), mortality due to neoplasms (IRR 0.09; 95% CI 0.02-0.40; p = 0.002), alcohol -attributable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (IRR 0.13; 95% CI 0.02-0.65; p = 0.014), and cardiovascular diseases (IRR 0.09; 95% CI 0.02-0.41; p = 0.002). The highest associations were observed in the Americas, Africa, and Europe. These associations became stronger over time, and AUD prevalence was significantly lower after 2 years, while ALD mortality and alcohol -attributable HCC incidence decreased after 4 and 8 years from baseline API assessment, respectively (p <0.05). Conclusions: The API is a valuable instrument to quantify the robustness of alcohol -related PHP establishment. Lower AUD prevalence and lower mortality related to ALD, neoplasms, alcohol -attributable HCC, and cardiovascular diseases were observed in countries with a higher API. Our results encourage the development and strengthening of alcohol -related policies worldwide. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Association for the Study of the Liver. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).