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Alcohol - Alcohol-related Chronic Disease Deaths

Summary Indicator Report Data View Options

This is the AlcoholRelatedDthChronic.RacEth graph narrative.

Alcohol-related Chronic Disease Deaths by County, New Mexico, 2019-2023

In general, males are more at risk than females for alcohol-related chronic disease death. Male rates are 2-3 times higher than female rates, across all racial/ethnic groups. American Indians are most at risk among the race/ethnic groups, with both total rates and male and female rates more than twice the corresponding state rates. As mentioned earlier, Hispanic males are also at elevated risk.

Why Is This Important?

Chronic conditions account for more than half of all alcohol-related deaths in New Mexico. These chronic conditions include alcohol-related chronic liver disease which accounts for about one out of three of all alcohol-related deaths in New Mexico. Chronic alcohol-related deaths may be more associated with chronic heavy drinking (defined as drinking, on average, more than two drinks per day for men and more than one drink per day for women) than with binge drinking, but both forms of excessive alcohol consumption led to chronic alcohol-related deaths. In New Mexico, chronic alcohol related deaths increased by 12.5% between 2000 and 2013, and then 69.6% between 2013 and 2020. It is also important to remember that these chronic disease deaths represent only the tip of the iceberg of health and social problems associated with chronic heavy alcohol use in New Mexico. For every alcohol-related death, there are many living persons (and their families) impaired by serious morbidity and reduced quality of life due to chronic alcohol abuse. Please see the latest New Mexico Substance Use State Epidemiology Profile for more information about alcohol and other substance impact on New Mexcio.

Definition

Alcohol-related chronic disease death is defined as the number of chronic disease deaths attributed to alcohol per 100,000 population. The alcohol-related chronic disease death rates reported here are based on definitions and alcohol-attributable fractions from the CDC's Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) website (http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/ardi/Homepage.aspx). ARDI updated its definition last in 2022 that created adjustments in previously reported data.

Data Sources

How the Measure is Calculated

Numerator:Number of alcohol-related chronic disease deaths in New Mexico
Denominator:New Mexico population

Evidence-based Practices

There is a large body of evidence on effective strategies to prevent excessive alcohol use and alcohol-related harm. The following list summarizes the evidence-based prevention strategies that are well-recommended by experts; and that could be more widely or completely implemented in New Mexico to reduce our alcohol-related problems: http://ibis.health.state.nm.us/docs/Evidence/EvidenceBasedExcessiveAlcoholUsePrevention.pdf To access this list, please copy and paste the URL into your browser. For more information on this topic, see the "Evidence-based Practices" section of the Alcohol-Related Deaths indicator report (http://ibis.health.state.nm.us/indicator/important_facts/AlcoholRelatedDth.html).

Other Objectives

Substance Abuse Epidemiology Report Indicator, New Mexico Community Health Status Indicator (CHSI) New Mexico Community Health Status Indicator (CHSI)

Available Services

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals should screen all adult patients and counsel those who drink too much to drink less. This is called alcohol screening and brief intervention (A-SBI). A-SBI can reduce how much alcohol a person drinks on an occasion by 25%. A-SBI is recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the Community Preventive Services Task Force (Community Guide), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the World Health Organization (WHO). For more information on A-SBI, please the CDC vital signs website: www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/alcohol-screening-counseling/index.html

More Resources

For the latest information about alcohol-related chronic deaths and other trends related to alcohol or other substances, please see the latest New Mexico Substance Use State Epidemiology Profile posted on the New Mexico Department of Health's Substance Abuse Epidemiology Section website at https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/ibeb/sap/. CDC Alcohol Program has fact sheets, online tool kits, data and recently published literature, available at: www.cdc.gov/alcohol. The CDC also publishes the Prevention Status Reports (PSR), which highlight, for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the status of public health policies and practices designed to address important public health problems and concerns. The 2013 PSR for excessive alcohol use can be found at: www.cdc.gov/psr/alcohol. The Community Preventive Services Task Force reviews research and makes recommendations to help communities answer the question "what works?" Community Guide recommendations for preventing excessive alcohol consumption can be found at: [http://www.thecommunityguide.org/alcohol].

Indicator Data Last Updated On 09/05/2025, Published on 09/05/2025
Substance Use Epidemiology, Epidemiology and Response Division, New Mexico Department of Health, 1190 S. Saint Francis Drive, Room N-1103, Santa Fe, NM, 87502. Contact Annaliese Mayette, Alcohol Epidemiologist, by telephone at (505) 476-1788 or email to Annaliese.Mayette@state.nm.us.