This Is How Alcohol Consumption In Washington Compares To Other States

Canadian well being officers issued revised authorities suggestions for alcohol consumption final week, altering the low threat stage from two drinks per day to 2 drinks per week. Well being officers additional stated that no quantity is protected and strongly instructed that residents minimize out alcohol altogether.

There’s a rising physique of proof that means that any alcohol consumption, nonetheless average, can have adverse well being penalties. Even low ranges of consuming enhance the chance of hypertension, coronary heart illness, and sure varieties of most cancers – and as alcohol consumption rises, so do the well being dangers and alcohol-related deaths.

Understanding that there is no such thing as a such factor as risk-free consuming, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention – whereas not going as far as its Canadian counterpart – defines average consuming as 2 drinks or much less per day for males and no multiple drink per day for girls. Nonetheless, regardless of the well-publicized well being dangers, greater than two-thirds of grownup drinkers commonly exceed these ranges.

In some components of the nation, extreme consuming is way extra widespread than in others. In keeping with knowledge from the Nationwide Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Washington residents consumed 2.26 gallons per resident 14 and older in 2020, the sixteenth lowest amongst states. Nationwide, alcohol consumption was 2.45 gallons per individual the identical 12 months.

The well being dangers posed by extreme alcohol consumption transcend continual circumstances. A reported 32.7% of all driving deaths in Washington between 2016 and 2020 concerned alcohol.

Information on alcohol-related driving fatalities got here from the 2022 County Well being Rankings & Roadmaps, a Robert Wooden Johnson Basis and College of Wisconsin Inhabitants Well being Institute joint program.