Premium
Alcoholic and Non‐alcoholic Liver Disease in Relation to Alcohol Consumption in Scotland, 1978–84.
Author(s) -
KREITMAN NORMAN,
DUFFY JOHN
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
british journal of addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0952-0481
DOI - 10.1111/j.1360-0443.1989.tb03476.x
Subject(s) - alcoholic liver disease , epidemiology , cirrhosis , alcohol consumption , proxy (statistics) , disease , medicine , liver disease , population , alcohol , consumption (sociology) , mortality rate , environmental health , biology , computer science , biochemistry , machine learning , social science , sociology
Summary A common strategy in epidemiological studies linking alcohol consumption in the general population with liver cirrhosis mortality is to use non‐specific cirrhosis mortality rates in which alcoholic and non‐alcoholic causes of death are not distinguished. Evidence is presented from Scottish mortality data for 1979 to 1984 that the two forms of cirrhosis have quite different epidemiological profiles. Similar findings emerge from morbidity data. The two forms of disease should be distinguished in future studies in which liver cirrhosis is used as a proxy for consumption, despite the manifest shortcomings of currently available data.