title: Developing a method to derive alcohol-attributable fractions for HIV/AIDS mortality based on alcohol's impact on adherence to antiretroviral medication.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alcohol consumption is causally linked to nonadherence to antiretroviral treatment that in turn causes an increase in HIV/AIDS mortality. This article presents a method to calculate the percentage of HIV/AIDS deaths attributable to alcohol consumption and the associated uncertainty.
  
  
  METHODS
  By combining information on risk relations from a number of published sources, we estimated alcohol-attributable fractions (AAFs) of HIV/AIDS in a stepwise procedure. First, we estimated the effect of alcohol consumption on adherence to antiretroviral treatment, and then we combined this estimate with the impact of nonadherence on death. The 95% uncertainty intervals were computed by estimating the variance of the AAFs using Taylor series expansions of one and multiple variables. AAFs were determined for each of the five Global Burden of Disease regions of Africa, based on country-specific treatment and alcohol consumption data from 2005.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The effects of alcohol on HIV/AIDS in the African Global Burden of Disease regions range from 0.03% to 0.34% for men and from 0% to 0.17% for women, depending on region and age category. The detrimental effect of alcohol consumption was statistically significant in every region and age category except for the North Africa/Middle East region.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although the method has its limitations, it was shown to be feasible and provided estimates of the impact of alcohol use on the mortality outcome of HIV/AIDS.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), 33 Russell Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2S1, Canada. jtrehm@aol.com.
authors.forename: Gerrit
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gmel
authors.forename: Kevin D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Shield
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rehm