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

Why Is This Important?

Alcohol is the fourth-leading preventable cause of death in the United States behind tobacco, poor diet and physical inactivity, and illegal drugs. The consequences of excessive alcohol use are severe in New Mexico where the state has had the highest alcohol-related death rate in the United States since 1997. The negative consequences of excessive alcohol use in New Mexico are not limited to death but also include domestic violence, crime, poverty, and unemployment, as well as chronic liver disease, motor vehicle crash and other injuries, some cancers, and a variety of other medical conditions. Nationally, one in ten deaths among working age adults (age 20-64) is attributable to alcohol. In New Mexico this ratio is twice as high at one in five deaths.

Definition

Alcohol-related death is defined as the total number of deaths attributed to alcohol per 100,000 population, age-adjusted to the U.S 2000 Standard Population. The alcohol-related 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].

Data Notes

Data Sources

• New Mexico Death Data: Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS), Epidemiology and Response Division, New Mexico Department of Health.
  (https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/bvrhs/vrp/)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC WONDER Online Database
  (http://wonder.cdc.gov)
• New Mexico Population Estimates: University of New Mexico, Geospatial and Population Studies (GPS) Program.
  (http://gps.unm.edu/)

How the Measure is Calculated

Data Issues

• Death Certificate Data

  Death certificate information is submitted electronically by funeral directors, who obtain demographic information from an informant, a close family member of the decedent. The NMDOH Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS) does annual trainings for funeral directors and local registrars and the death certificate information goes through extensive scrutiny for completeness and consistency. The cause of death is certified by the decedent's physician or the physician that attended the death. Accidental and suspicious deaths are certified by the Office of the Medical Investigator. When death certificates are received the cause of death literals are keyed into software locally by the BVRHS, then shipped to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) where they are machine coded into ICD-10 cause-of-death codes. NCHS returns the ICD-10 codes to BVRHS where the death records are updated.

• New Mexico Population Estimates

  All population estimates apply to July 1 of the selected year. These estimates are considered the most accurate estimates for the state of New Mexico and should match those found on the University of New Mexico Geospatial and Population Studies website. Estimates include decimal fractions. Census tract population estimates were summed to produce County and Small Area population estimates. Population estimate totals may vary due to rounding. Population estimates for previous years are occasionally revised as new information becomes available. When publishing trend data, always be sure that your rates for earlier years match current rates on NM-IBIS that have been calculated with the most up-to-date population estimates.

Health Topic Pages Related to: Alcohol - Alcohol-Related Death

• Alcohol Use
• Leading Causes of Death
• Mental Health
• Substance Use