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Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of distilled spirits, wine, and beer taxes on cirrhosis mortality using a large-panel data set and statistical models that control for various other factors that may affect that mortality. Method: The analyses were performed on a panel of 30 U.S. license states during the period 1971-1998 (N = 840 state-by-year observations). Exogenous measures included current and lagged versions of beverage taxes and income, as well as controls for states' age distribution, religion, race, health care availability, urbanity, tourism, and local bans on alcohol sales. Regression analyses were performed using random-effects models with corrections for serial autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity among states. Results: Cirrhosis rates were found to be significantly related to taxes on distilled spirits but not to taxation of wine and beer. Consistent results were found using different statistical models and model specifications. Conclusions: Consistent with prior research, cirrhosis mortality in the United States appears more closely linked to consumption of distilled spirits than to that of other alcoholic beverages., THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS EVIDENCE concerning the role of alcohol taxation in the determination of aggregate mortality rates due to cirrhosis of the liver. Numerous studies have demonstrated that alcohol taxes [...]

Objective: This article reports the results of an analysis of the relationships between demographic and alcohol consumption variables and the likelihood of injury occurring during the 6-month period prior to survey administration. Method: The data examined are from a general population survey administered to 22,626 respondents (56.9% female) as part of a community trial project to reduce alcohol-involved injury currently being conducted in six communities in California and South Carolina. Three models that relate consumption patterns and exogenous background variables to injury are evaluated. The first considers only demographic background variables. The second model adds three consumption measures (i.e., frequency, average drinks per occasion and variance) to the first. The third adds a control for community of residence. A fourth model is estimated using frequency and average drinks per occasion, by omitting variance. Results: Findings indicate that likelihood of injury is affected by demographic, alcohol consumption and community of residence variables. Specifically, likelihood of injury is significantly related to being young, white, male and single, and having a high variance drinking pattern. Community level effects were found, with California respondents being more likely to experience injuries, controlling for other model variables. Although measures for education and income were included in our analysis, no effects for these variables could be found. Also, other drinking measures (i.e., drinking frequency and average drinks per occasion) were not found to be significantly related to injury, although estimated coefficients were in the predicted direction. Conclusions: Complementary to studies that have noted that a large portion of injuries involve persons who have been drinking prior to injury, our findings suggest a link between likelihood of injury and general drinking patterns., Persons who report variable drinking patterns may be more susceptible to injury. Telephone survey results of 22,626 participants in California and South Carolina were analyzed for injury risk as a function of alcohol consumption variables and demographics. Young, white, unmarried men with irregular drinking habits were more likely to be injured. Participants living in California were at greater risk for injury than South Carolina residents., (J. Stud. Alcohol 58: 372-381,1997) During the past decade there has been a growing recognitions that alcohol consumption increases the likelihood of injury among individuals in the general population. However, [...]

A positive correlation exists between cirrhosis mortality rates and the sales of alcoholic drinks. The study establishes a relationship between chronic heavy consumptions and preferences for strong drinks such as spirits. The consumption of alcoholic drinks causes both long and short term physiological effects. The study uses the data on cirrhosis mortality rates and beverage specific sales rates of 50 states in US over 12 year period to evaluate the relationship.