Newly released mortality data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show an alarming upward trajectory of deaths directly linked to excessive alcohol use nationally. This is also the case in Wisconsin, but to a greater extent.
Alcohol-induced deaths rose nearly 25% in Wisconsin in 2020, the biggest one-year increase in more than two decades. This was just slightly below the national increase during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Wisconsin started with a higher rate of such deaths than the national average, and last year’s increase exacerbated a trend that warrants consideration of underlying causes and appropriate policy responses.
-WI Policy Forum
These data, drawn from death certificates of U.S. residents, show 1,077 Wisconsinites died in 2020 due to alcohol-induced causes, up from 865 in 2019. The 24.5% rise – which includes only the deaths that were most directly attributable to alcohol use but excludes others where alcohol may have been a factor – was the largest year-over-year increase within the data going back to 1999. Monthly data show the large spike in deaths began in July 2020.
