Population drinking and fatal injuries in Eastern Europe: a time-series analysis of six countries

To estimate to what extent injury mortality rates in 6 Eastern European countries are affected by changes in population drinking during the post-war period.

The analysis included injury mortality rates and per capita alcohol consumption in Russia, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the former Czechoslovakia. Total population and gender-specific models were estimated using auto regressive integrated moving average time-series modelling.

The estimates for the total population were generally positive and significant. For Russia and Belarus, a 1-litre increase in per capita consumption was associated with an increase in injury mortality of 7.5 and 5.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. The estimates for the remaining countries ranged between 1.4 and 2.0. The gender-specific estimates displayed national variations similar to the total population estimates although the estimates for males were higher than for females in all countries.

The results suggest that changes in per capita consumption have a significant impact on injury mortality in these countries, but the strength of the association tends to be stronger in countries where intoxication-oriented drinking is more common.