Beverage-Specific Alcohol Sale and Suicide in Russia
Abstract
Background: The high suicide rate in Russia and its profound fluctuation over the past decades have attracted considerable interest. There is growing evidence that beverage preference and binge-drinking patterns, i.e., excessive consumption of strong spirits, results in a quicker and deeper level of intoxication, which increases the propensity for the alcohol-related suicide. In line with this evidence, we assumed that higher levels of vodka consumption, in conjunction with binge-drinking patterns, would result in a close, aggregate-level association between vodka sales and suicide in Russia. Aims and Methods: To test this hypothesis, trends in beverage-specific alcohol sales per capita and suicide rates from 1970 to 2005 in Russia were analyzed employing ARIMA time-series analysis. Results: The results of the time-series analysis suggested that a 1 liter increase in overall alcohol sales would result in a 4% increase in the male suicide rate and a 2.8% increase in the female suicide rate; a 1 liter increase in vodka sales would increase the suicide rate by 9.3% for men and by 6% for women. Conclusions: This study replicates previous findings from other settings, which suggest that suicide rates tend to be more responsive to changes in distilled spirits consumption per capita than to the total level of alcohol consumption. Assuming that drinking spirits is usually associated with intoxication episodes, these findings provide additional evidence that the drinking pattern is an important determinant in the relationship between alcohol and suicide. The outcomes of this study also provide support for the hypothesis that suicide and alcohol are closely connected in cultures where an intoxication-oriented drinking pattern prevails and adds to the growing body of evidence that alcohol plays a crucial role in the fluctuation in suicide mortality rates in Russia during recent decades.
References
(1999). Alcohol consumption in a national sample of the Russian population. Addiction, 94, 857–866.
(1976). Time series analysis: Forecasting and control. London: Holden-Day Inc.
(1998). Time series analyses of alcohol consumption and suicide mortality in the U.S., 1984–1987. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 59, 455–461.
(2004). Acute alcohol use and suicidal behavior: A review of the literature. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 28(5), 18–28.
(1995). Suicide rates and alcohol consumption in the United States 1970–1989. Addiction, 90, 1063–1075.
(2001). Alcohol and suicidal behavior. Clinical Psychology Review, 21, 797–811.
(2006). The role of alcohol in suicide: A case-control psychological autopsy study. Psychological Medicine, 2, 1–8.
(2002). Alcohol use in adolescents from northern Russia: The role of social context. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 37, 297–303.
(1998). Social stress and the Russian mortality crisis. Journal of the American Medical Association, 79, 790–791.
(1995). The association between alcohol consumption and suicide and homicide rates: A study of 13 nations. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 13, 98–100.
(1997). Suicide in an international perspective. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 27, 105–111.
(1998). Suicide and homicide after the fall of communist regimes. European Psychiatry, 13, 98–100.
(2000). Eastern European transition and suicide mortality. Social Science and Medicine, 51, 1405–1420.
(2006). Suicide mortality of Eastern European regions before and after the communist period. Social Science and Medicine, 63, 307–319.
(1999). Alcohol in Russia. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 34, 824–829.
(2001). Alcohol-related mortality in Russia, 1980–90s. Moscow: Nalex.
(2003). Suicide and alcohol consumption in Russia, 1965–1999. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 1, 161–168.
(2008). Alcohol situation in Russia, 1980–2005. Social and Clinical Psychiatry, 2, 52–60.
(1995). Alcohol and suicide: A comparative analysis of France and Sweden. Addiction, 90, 1463–1469.
(1999). Beverage-specific effects on suicide. Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 16, 109–118.
(2001). Alcohol and mortality: Methodological and analytical issues in aggregate analysis. Addiction, 96, 5–17.
(2000). Suicides of alcohol misusers and nonmisusers in nationwide population. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 35, 70–75.
(2006). Heavy drinking and suicide in Russia. Social Forces, 85(1), 413–430.
(2006). A time-series analysis of the impact of heavy drinking on homicide and suicide mortality in Russia, 1956–2002. Addiction, 101, 1719–1729.
(2003). Pattern of suicide mortality in Russia. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 33, 132–150.
(2001). Alcohol and suicide in 14 European countries. Addiction, 96, 59–75.
(2001). The association between the level of alcohol consumption per capita and suicide rate: Results of time-series analysis. Alcoholism, 2, 35–43.
(2003). Association between distilled spirits consumption and violent mortality rate. Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy, 10, 223–235.
(2006). Alcohol consumption and suicide rate in Belarus. Psychiatria Danubina, 18(Suppl. 1), 64
(2007). Suicide and alcohol psychoses in Belarus 1970–2005. Crisis, 28, 61–66.
(1993). Suicide, alcohol, and divorce: Aspects of gender and family integration. Addiction, 88, 1659–1665.
(1993). Alcohol and the 1950–1990 suicide trend – Is there a causal connection? Acta Sociologica, 36, 33–46.
(2007). Alcohol poisoning in Russia and the countries in the European part of the former Soviet Union, 1970–2002. European Journal of Public Health, 17, 444–449.
(2000). Stress: The invisible hand in Eastern Europe’s death rates. Science, 288, 1732–1733.
(2006). Do alcohol restrictions reduce suicide mortality? Addiction, 102, 251–256.
(1998). Age-specific suicide rates in the Slavic and Baltic regions of the former USSR during perestroika, in comparison with 22 European countries. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 98(Suppl. 394), 20–25.
(1998). Reliability of statistics on violent death and suicide in the former USSR, 1970–1990. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 394(Suppl.), 34–41.
(1994). Male suicides and alcohol consumption in the former USSR. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 89, 306–313.
