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Alcohol, tobacco account for greatest prevalence of addictions worldwide

A comprehensive report on global addiction and substance use disorders indicates tobacco and alcohol account for the greatest prevalence of addictions and cause the most harm.

“Addictive behaviors impose a high economic burden on society through health care costs, public safety, crime, and lost productivity as well as other social costs,” study researcher Linda R. Gowing, PhD, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, and colleagues wrote in Addiction. “It is important to be able to have readily available, up-to-date prevalence and other estimates relating to these behaviors at global, regional and national levels to track progress towards reducing this burden, to help set policy priorities and to help evaluate policies.”

To establish global estimates of substance use disorders and addiction, Gowing and colleagues reviewed data from websites of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Overall, 4.9% of the global adult population have alcohol use disorder (7.8% of men, 1.5% of women). Alcohol caused an estimated 257 disability-adjusted life years lost per 100,000 population.

Approximately 22.5% of adults worldwide smoke tobacco products (32% of men, 7% of women). Tobacco accounted for an estimated 11% of deaths among males and 6% of deaths among females each year, according to researchers.

Although data on unsanctioned psychoactive drug use was limited, researchers estimated cannabis was the most commonly used drug, as 3.5% of the global adult population reported use.

Use of all other unsanctioned psychoactive drugs was below 1% and 0.3% of the world’s  population inject drugs.

Psychoactive drugs accounted for an estimated 83 disability-adjusted life years lost per 100,000 population.

Researchers were unable to determine global estimates of gambling, but countries with available data had an estimated overall prevalence of 1.5%.

While researchers found a good amount of data for alcohol and tobacco use and some data for unsanctioned drug use, they expressed concerns about the lack of data for drug dependence.

“There is almost no information of the prevalence of dependence on drugs used in an unsanctioned way, a gap that is significant given that it is dependence that primarily drives demand for treatment,” Gowing and colleagues wrote. “Such data may be available at country-level, but the lack of global data leaves a knowledge gap that impedes the capacity for agencies such as WHO, UNODC and UNAIDS and international non-governmental organizations to plan their activities with a view to achieving the greatest possible impact. This suggests an important area of need for future effort.” – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: Gowing reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.