Mortality in alcoholism among men in the Lundby Community Cohort, Sweden: a forty-year follow-up.

OBJECTIVE: The Lundby Community Cohort has been studied at multiple points in time for more than four decades. The purpose of the present study was to estimate various aspects of mortality among alcoholic men in the cohort.

METHOD: The mortality rate was calculated for a defined subset of 41 originally nonalcoholic men, who were diagnosed as first incidence alcoholics during the period 1957-1972, all of whom were followed-up through four waves of investigation between 1947 and 1993. Certified causes of death were obtained from the Swedish National Bureau of Statistics and complemented with information from relatives and hospital records.

RESULTS: Of the 41 men, 18 (44%) had died by 1993; 27% before age 60. The average age at death was 56.6 years, (age range 25-86 years). The mortality risk for the group calculated as odds ratio was estimated to be 5.6. The most common causes of death were diseases of the circulatory system (9/18 or 50%). Accidents and suicides were also significant causes (8/18 or 44%), especially in age groups 20-59. The results were compared with those of an earlier published 15-year follow-up of another sample of alcoholics in the Lundby population.

CONCLUSIONS: In accordance with the international literature, the study shows a significant reduction in life expectancy for men with alcohol-related disorders compared with matched controls. The data will be used as a basis for forthcoming qualitative analyses of how individual life courses are correlated with alcoholism and heavy drinking.