Unhealthy Alcohol Use in Low and Middle-income Countries: Burden, Impact, and Mitigation Strategies

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Background

Unhealthy alcohol use is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths globally, with wide-ranging societal, economic, health, and health systems consequences. The consumption of alcohol has been strongly associated with various health conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, liver disease, mental health disorders, accidents, and injuries. In 2016, alcohol misuse ranked as the seventh-leading risk factor for premature death and disability worldwide, becoming the primary risk factor among individuals aged 15 to 49. Furthermore, alcohol consumption accounted for 5.1% of the global burden of disease and injury, equivalent to 132.6 million disability-adjusted life years. Unhealthy alcohol use leads to loss of life and increases healthcare costs; it reduces productivity due to absenteeism and causes income and tax revenue losses. Moreover, it increases social and economic costs, such as family violence and child abuse. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated alcohol-related issues due to heightened stress and isolation. Additionally, ongoing trends in population growth, urbanization, and evolving cultural norms continue, are expected to impact alcohol consumption, posing even greater challenges to public health.

This Research Topic aims to gather comprehensive evidence on the burdens associated with unhealthy alcohol use. The primary focus of this collection is to target submissions that present the health burden of unhealthy alcohol use, forecast future trends, quantify the social and economic costs, and collate evaluation study results on harm reduction strategies. The editors of this collection are particularly interested in population-level primary studies or systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Given the vulnerability of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to increased alcohol consumption because of rapid urbanization, population growth, and shifts in cultural norms, the primary focus of this collection will be on LMICs. However, submissions around population-level studies from other regions worldwide will also be considered. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Regional, national, and sub-national assessments of the health burden attributed to unhealthy alcohol use, including future trends;

• Assessment of the burden and health impact of illicit alcohol consumption, including the complex interactions with nutrition, depression, concurrent smoking, and other risk factors;

• Evaluation of the social and economic costs and the impacts on health systems associated with alcohol use;

• Exploration of population-level harm reduction interventions and evaluation studies.

Submissions of the following article types are welcome: systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and primary studies encompassing quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Keywords: unhealthy alcohol use, unhealthy alcohol use burden, unhealth alcohol use economic cost, brief intervention for alcohol use, social impact of alcohol use

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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