Economic Studies on Alcohol Consumption in the U.S.
 

The economic costs of alcohol abuse are estimated to have been $184.6 billion in 1998 (Table 1). This new estimate represents a 25 percent increase (3.8 percent per year on average) from the $148 billion comprehensive estimate developed previously for 1992 (Harwood et al., 1998). The current update has developed new estimates for 22 major cost components and has applied various combinations of 18 different specific adjustment factors to account for 1992 to 1998 changes in, for example:

 

Table 1
Economic Costs of Alcohol Abuse: 1992 Estimates and Projections for 1998
(Millions of current-year dollars)
 
Cost Component
Cost Estimate
($ in millions)
Average Annual Percent Change
1992 (original estimate)
1998 (updated estimate)
Total

148,021

184,636

 3.8

Specialty Alcohol Services

5,573

7,466

 5.0

Medical Consequences (except FAS)

11,205

15,963

 6.1

Medical Consequences of FAS

2,042

2,909

 6.1

Lost Future Earnings Due to Premature Deaths

31,327

36,499

 2.6

Lost Earnings Due to Alcohol-Related Illness

68,219

86,368

 4.0

Lost Earnings Due to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

990

1,253

 4.0

Lost Earnings Due to Crime/Victims

6,461

10,085

 7.7

Crashes, Fires, Criminal Justice, etc.

22,204

24,093

 1.4

Source: Harwood et al. (1998) and analysis by The Lewin Group.

The 3.8 percent average annual increase in the estimated costs of alcohol abuse reflects changes in a number of factors: between 1992 and 1998, national health expenditures grew an average of 6.1 percent annually, gross domestic product growth averaged 5.3 percent, adult population grew 0.9 percent per year, consumer prices increased by 2.5 percent per year on average, and worker compensation grew by an average of 3.0 percent annually.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Public Health Service
National Institutes of Health
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

This report was prepared by Henrick J. Harwood of The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) under Contract No. N01-AA-7-1010 to ROW Sciences, Inc. The task supervisor for this project was Gregory Bloss of NIAAA's Division of Biometry and Epidemiology; the Project Director was Brenda Benesch of ROW Sciences, Inc. The content of this report is the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the NIAAA.

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