The Avoidable Health Burden and Healthcare Costs Related to Alcohol Consumption in Australia: Multistate Life Table Modelling

Abstract

This study used The Alcohol Policy model (TAP), a newly-developed proportional multi-state lifetable model, to estimate the avoidable alcohol-related disease, injury and healthcare cost burden in the Australian adult population (aged ≥ 15 years). The model base year was 2020. Changes in alcohol consumption were modelled to lead to changes in incident cases and mortality from alcohol-related diseases and injuries, long-term health outcomes summarized as health adjusted life years (HALYs), and healthcare costs. No discounting was applied. Over 25 years, elimination of alcohol consumption could prevent 25.9 million cases of disease and injury (23.1 million from acute causes) and avert 211,697 deaths, the majority of which would be from cancers (114,948). This translated to 5.1 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 4.0 to 6.2) million HALYs gained and Australian dollars (AU$) 55 (95%UI 36 to 75) billion saved in healthcare costs. Over 60 years, the benefits were 17 (95%UI 14 to 21) million HALYs and AU$ 68 (95%UI 9.6 to 130) billion. These findings support investment in polices that reduce alcohol consumption.