Men and women from low socioeconomic backgrounds experience elevated risk of chronic and acute alcohol harms

Abstract

This is one of the first studies that addresses sex differences in people with low socioeconomic positions and alcohol-attributable harm. Alcohol attributable harm was measured by emergency department (ED) visits. Each ED visit was then classified into acute wholly alcohol-attributed (e.g., alcohol intoxication) or chronic wholly alcohol-attributed (e.g., alcoholic liver disease). This study found that men and women of low socioeconomic positions had more acute and chronic alcohol attributable ED visits than their counterparts with high socioeconomic positioning. Further, men with low socioeconomic positioning made up the majority of ED visits in this statistic.