Changes in socio-economic inequality in alcohol-attributable mortality in periods of increasing and decreasing alcohol affordability.

Introduction: Reducing alcohol affordability reduces alcohol-related harm but its impact on socio-economic inequalities requires further study. We examine changes in alcohol-attributable mortality inequalities in Finland during periods of sharply rising (2000-2007) and falling (2008-2017) alcohol affordability.

Methods: Linking individual-level register data on causes of death and socio-demographics for the Finnish population aged ≥25 in 2000-2017 (68 million person-years), we analysed age-standardised monthly alcohol-attributable mortality rates by sex and income quintile (n = 32,699 alcohol-attributable deaths). Regression models were used to analyse mortality trends in the two periods, contrasting high- and low-income groups.

Results: Inequalities in alcohol-attributable mortality between low- and high-income groups were large throughout the study period. During the period of rising alcohol affordability, mortality increased among high-income men with an average monthly increase of 0.17% (p = 0.046). This rate was even higher among low-income men, increasing by 0.55% per month, that is, +0.38 percentage points more than the rate for high-income men (p = 0.002). Among women, mortality increased at similar rates in both income groups. During the period of falling alcohol affordability, mortality decreased among high-income men with an average monthly decrease of -0.21% (p < 0.001), and it decreased even more among low-income men (-0.40%, i.e., -0.19 percentage points more, p = 0.030). Among women, the decreases were not statistically significant.

Discussion and conclusions: The results indicate that increased alcohol affordability was associated with widening socio-economic inequalities while reduced affordability was linked with narrowing inequalities among men. Reducing alcohol affordability is thus a recommendable policy for reducing socio-economic inequality in alcohol-related harm.