A number of regions in Europe were screened for the study, the first from the exercise having been published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (2001: Vol. 56, No.6 pp383-388). Now , a second study from this activity has been published in the Social Science and Medicine (2003;56:1385-1395).

It describes trends in mortality attributable to current alcohol consumption in East and West Germany. There is increasing awareness of alcohol as a cause of the persisting health divide between eastern and western Germany.

Taking into account both the adverse and beneficial effects of alcohol, this study quantifies the burden of alcohol attributable mortality in 2 parts of Germany in the 1990’s.

Including the cardio-protective effect of alcohol, there were 1.4% more deaths among men aged 20+ in 1992 in Germany than would have been expected in a non-drinking population, while there were 0.1% fewer deaths among women.

By 1997, this had increased to 1.8% excess male deaths and 0.1% excess female deaths. In 1997 alcohol ‘caused’ 9.0% of all the east German men compared with 5.6% in the west (women east: 2.5% women west 2.2%) At the same time alcohol ‘prevented’ 5.5% deaths in east German men compared with 4.3% in the west, while there were 2.9% and 2.0% fewer deaths in women.

It was concluded that mortality attributable to alcohol contributes considerably to overall mortality and to east-west gap in Germany. The study points to the need for comprehensive policies on alcohol in Germany to close the persisting east-west gap.