Even though the World Health Organisation warns that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health”, alcoholic beverages remain popular. But just how popular are they and how has alcohol consumption in Europe evolved over the years?
According to the World Health Organisation, the WHO European Region (which comprises 53 countries) notes the highest level of alcohol consumption per person in the world. In order to make the data more readable, all alcoholic beverages are converted to a quantity of pure alcohol and the data include the annual sales of pure alcohol in litres per person aged 15 and over. Domestic or illegal production aren’t included in the statistics.
“Consumption of alcohol is a preventable risk factor that can cause premature death and over 200 diseases including seven types of cancer, neuropsychiatric disorders, cardiovascular diseases, cirrhosis of the liver and several infectious diseases. Across the WHO European Region, alcohol causes almost 1 million deaths annually, contributing significantly to unintentional and intentional injuries”, the WHO explains.
The WHO sees a clear decline in alcohol consumption over the years in the European Union. Where in 1980, the average consumption was about 12.7 litres of pure alcohol per person per year, in 2020 it was down to only 9.8 litres – even though the decrease has slowed over the last 20 years. Translated into actual beverages, this makes for 196 litres of beer, 82 litres of wine or almost 25 litres of spirits.
The average amount of alcohol consumed per person in Europe greatly varies depending on the country. In 2020, Latvia, Czechia and Lithuania appeared to be the heaviest drinkers, consuming 12.1, 11.6 and 11.4 litres per person respectively. Albania, Northern Macedonia and Türkiye consumed the least, with 4.4, 3.9 and 1.2 litres respectively.
Even though there was indeed an average decrease of 0.6 litres in alcohol consumption between 2010 and 2020, that doesn’t mean all countries experienced a slowdown. Latvia, Bulgaria, Malta, Romania and Poland all saw an increase of 1 litre or more.
“We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is”, explained Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting Unit Lead for Noncommunicable Disease Management and Regional Advisor for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe.
Interesting to note as well are the amount of heavy drinkers per country. Heavy episodic drinkers are considered those above 18 years old who reported having had 60 grammes or more of pure ethanol on a single occasion in the past 30 days, equivalent to 6 drinks or more. Overall, in the EU, 19% of adults have had such a heavy drinking episode over the last month, with men being more likely to do so than women (26.6% versus 11.4%). The heaviest episodic drinkers among men can be found in Romania (55.2%), Denmark (48,.6%) and Luxembourg (46%), while the heaviest female episodic drinkers are in Denmark (26%), Luxembourg (23.5%) and Germany (22.2%).
The gender gap in heavy episodic drinking might be real but educational levels matter too. According to the WHO data, people with lower education levels are less likely to have heavy drinking episodes than those with higher level education. Overall, of those with less than upper secondary education, 12.5% reported heavy episodic drinking. Almost half of the numbers reported by those with at least upper secondary (22.3%) or tertiary education (20.2%). Purchasing capacity seems to be the main explanation for that gap, as OECD’s “State of Health in the EU Cycle-2022” report states that when looking at alcohol-related harm, the burden is greater on people with lower socio-economic status.
