The comparative risk assessment for alcohol as part of the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study: What changed from the last study?

Rehm, J., Borges, G., Gmel, G., Graham, K., Grant, B., Parry, C., Poznyak, V. & Room R. (2013). The comparative risk assessment for alcohol as part of the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study: What changed from the last study? International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 2(1), 1-5. doi: 10.7895/ijadr.v2i1.132 (http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v2i1.132)In December 2012, the new results of the Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) for alcohol within the Global Burden of Disease and Injury (GBD) Study 2010 were presented at a joint meeting of the GBD Group and the journal Lancet at the Royal Society in London (Lim et al., 2012). At first glance, there do not appear to be many changes to alcohol consumption as a risk factor for death and disability: it is identified as the third most important risk factor, as it was in the last CRA (World Health Organization, 2009). The burden of disease attributable to alcohol had increased, compared to the 2004 estimate (Rehm, Mathers et al., 2009), but this could be due to an increase in global population, or to variations in the methodologies behind the 2004 and 2010 estimates.