Alcohol consumption is a major public health issue in Europe due to its important consequences for health and mortality. Particularly relevant for current and future levels of alcohol-attributable mortality is the earlier onset of alcohol consumption and the increase of binge drinking among young generations. Detailed information about past trends and projected future alcohol-attributable mortality levels is essential for preventive health policies. However, future estimates are inexistent in most European countries. Our objective is to analyze past trends and project future trends of alcohol-attributable mortality in France.

We use cause-specific mortality data from a selection of main causes wholly-attributable to alcohol and liver cirrhosis (ICD-10 codes: F10, G312, K70, K73, K74 and X45) for France. We study country- and sex-specific past trends of alcohol-attributable mortality (1979-2014) using age-period-cohort models, and estimate future trends by projecting the time dependent parameters of the models.

Preliminary analysis using liver cirrhosis mortality data (1950-2011) shows gradual declines in alcohol-attributable mortality in France for both genders. In Finland, mortality rates increased up until the mid-2000s, and started to decline thereafter, especially for men. Birth cohorts at higher risk of mortality were born around 1950. Drift, the linear time component shared by period and cohort, was the main driver behind past trends and amounted to 66% (men) and 78% (women) in France. Future alcohol-attributable mortality trends are likely to follow this past linear decline, but for the cohorts identified above higher mortality can be expected as well.

Despite past declines in alcohol-attributable mortality, especially in France, alcohol-attributable mortality levels are expected to remain at considerable high.