Associations between alcohol related hospital admissions and alcohol consumption in Victoria: influence of socio-demographic factors.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the cross-sectional ecologic associations between apparent per-capita alcohol consumption, alcohol-related hospital admission rates, and the distributions of socio-demographic factors for people residing in 76 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Victoria, during the 1995-1996 fiscal year.


METHODS
Visitor-adjusted per-capita alcohol consumption was obtained from wholesale sales data from the Liquor Licensing Commission Victoria. Alcohol-related hospital admission rates were extracted from the Victorian Inpatient Minimum Dataset, and adjusted by the appropriate aetiologic fractions. Summary socio-demographic measures were derived from the 1996 Census. Their associations were analysed using multiple linear regression.


RESULTS
Per-capita alcohol consumption ranged from 4 to 14 litres absolute alcohol/year and alcohol-related hospital admission rates ranged from 5 to 25 per 10,000 residents/year (external-cause diagnoses) and 8-37 per 10,000 residents/year (disease diagnoses). Higher levels of per-capita consumption were associated with higher admission rates (r = 0.45 for external cause diagnoses, r = 0.66 for disease diagnoses, and r = 0.70 for all diagnoses), each per-capita increase of one litre/year corresponding to increased admission rates of 0.6, 1.5 and 2.1 per 10,000 person-years, respectively. Further adjustments by summary socio-demographic measures reduced, but did not modify, the associations between per-capita consumption and admission rates.


CONCLUSIONS
Summary measures of sales-based per-capita alcohol consumption and socio-demographic environments may provide useful indicators of alcohol-related morbidity in Victorian communities.
Jonas
H
H
Department of General Practice and Public Health, University of Melbourne, Victoria. h.jonas@gpph.unimelb.edu.au
Dietze
P
P
Rumbold
G
G
Hanlin
K
K
Cvetkovski
S
S
Laslett
A M
AM
D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014739:Victoria / Q000453:epidemiology