Mortality of harmful drinkers increased after reduction of alcohol prices in northern Finland: a 10-year follow-up of head trauma subjects.

OBJECTIVE: Alcohol-related mortality may be influenced by the level of alcohol consumption. We investigated the effect of alcohol price reduction on mortality in a cohort of 827 subjects with head injury.
METHODS: We used the Finnish National Hospital Discharge Register to identify all diagnoses recorded during hospital and health center visits for survivors of the index injury during a follow-up of 10 years. Mortality data were gathered from death records obtained from the Official Cause-of-Death Statistics. Cox proportional hazards model was used to identify independent predictors for death. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to characterize the effect of alcohol price reduction on mortality of harmful and non-harmful drinkers.
RESULTS: Alcohol-related deaths increased after the reduction of alcohol prices on March 1, 2004. Subjects recorded as harmful drinkers during the follow-up period were significantly (p < 0.001) more likely than others to die after the price reduction. Older age (HR 1.06, 95% CI 1.05-1.07), moderate-to-severe brain injury (HR 2.39, 95% CI 1.59-3.60) and harmful drinking recorded after the index trauma (HR 2.59, 95% CI 1.62-4.62) were significant (p < 0.001) predictors for death.
CONCLUSION: We conclude that a political decision to lower the price of alcohol may cause a significant increase in the death rate of harmful drinkers.