Heavy Alcohol Use Among Suicide Decedents: Differences in Risk Across Racial-Ethnic Groups

In previous work, we demonstrated that heavy alcohol use (defined as postmortem blood alcohol content [BAC] ≥.08 g/dL) prior to suicide varied by race-ethnicity (1), ranging from 13% among Asian/Pacific Islander (Asian/PI) to 36% of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) decedents. We also showed that persons who later died by suicide were more likely to drink and to do so heavily, compared with a living sample (2).

Using data from the 2005–2011 National Violent Death Reporting System (N=52,276) and the 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (N=43,093), we examined heavy alcohol use. We stratified by gender and adjusted for age and alcohol dependence. Heavy use was defined for suicide decedents as a BAC ≥.08 g/dL and for living comparison participants as drinking up to 48 hours prior to the interview and typically consuming five or more or four or more drinks per drinking day for men and women, respectively.

Figure 1 shows that all decedents were much more likely than comparison participants to have used alcohol heavily. Especially noteworthy are elevated odds ratios for Asian/PIs and Latinas. Risk of suicide due to heavy alcohol use was substantial across all racial-ethnic groups and especially for Latinas. Policies minimizing harmful alcohol use are essential for suicide prevention.