Alcohol consumption and its impact on the risk of high blood pressure in Russia.
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to examine the causal effect of alcohol consumption on the risk of high blood pressure in Russia.


METHODS
Using data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, we estimated the influence of alcohol consumption on high blood pressure, controlling for social and other factors related to alcohol use. To address the issue of causality, we instrumented alcohol consumption by the number of frequent alcohol drinkers in the household.


RESULTS
We found that frequent consumption of vodka and beer has an adverse impact on health. In particular, frequent vodka consumption increases the likelihood of high blood pressure by 2.88% while frequent beer consumption increases it by 2.06%. Controlling for the endogeneity of frequent alcohol consumption using the instrumental variable method produces an even larger effect for frequent vodka consumption, with a marginal effect of 7.23%.


CONCLUSIONS
Prevention policies as well as government programs aimed at treating alcohol-related health outcomes should take into consideration the significant adverse effect of alcohol consumption on high blood pressure. It is also recommended that policy interventions aimed to address alcohol addiction issues in Russia explicitly differentiate between vodka and beer drinkers.
Department of Economics, Zirve University, Gaziantep, Turkey. alisher.akhmedjonov@zirve.edu.tr
Alisher
A
Akhmedjonov
Farrukh
F
Suvankulov
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D000434:Alcoholic Beverages / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D012426:Russia / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult