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Alcohol Consumption Trends in the EU Member States and Their Association with Selected Socio-economic Indicators

BACKGROUND: Harmful alcohol consumption has
a negative impact on the health and social lives of
individuals. Alcohol consumption is risky for the
development of non-communicable diseases, can lead to
the development of serious illnesses, and, unfortunately,
can lead to death, injuries, or accidents. Societies and
especially individuals should be more involved in the
reduction of harmful alcohol consumption. AIM: The
paper deals with the analysis of the status of, and trends
in, the consumption of pure alcohol per capita in the EU
countries between 1980 and 2015. Correlation analysis
was conducted to detect the association between the
per capita consumption of alcohol and some selected
socio-economic indicators. METHODS: Statistical
characteristics, such as average, median, range, standard
deviation, and the coefficient of variation were used to
describe the level of the per capita consumption of pure
alcohol in the EU. Boxplot figures detected the extremely
high/low levels of the indicators that were analysed.
Index numbers were used to calculate the relative
change in alcohol consumption. The existence of a linear
relationship was discovered through correlation analysis.
Useful figures helped to present the status or change in
the per capita consumption of alcohol and the relationship
between alcohol consumption and selected indicators.
RESULTS: The trend of the per capita consumption of pure
alcohol in the EU was positive. The average per capita
consumption of alcohol declined from 12.9 litres in 1980
to 10.4 litres in 2015. Not only did the average or median
consumption decline, but also the variability of alcohol
consumption per capita declined till 2010. The greatest
reduction was found for the Mediterranean countries:
Italy (-57.3%), Spain (53.3%), Greece (-49.7%), and France
(37.4%). On the other hand, in some “new” EU countries
an increase in the per capita consumption of alcohol
occurred, the highest being in Estonia. On the EU level,
no statistically significant correlation was discovered
between the per capita consumption of alcohol and
gross domestic product per capita or between alcohol
consumption and countries’ unemployment rates.