Alcohol caused 6.7% of all disability-adjusted life years (i.e., years of life lost due to premature mortality plus years lost to disability stemming from alcohol) in the Americas in 2016. The Americas had some of the highest rates of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in the world. In 2016, nearly 1 in every 12 adults (8.2%) in the Americas met criteria for an alcohol use disorder (AUD), which is almost double the world average (5.1%). Alcohol was responsible for over 379,000 deaths in 2016, which equaled roughly one life lost every 100 seconds. The types of alcohol-attributable deaths that claimed the most lives included cancers (83,351), self-harm and
interpersonal violence (65,880), and digestive diseases (62,668). Alcohol was the second leading behavioral risk factor for death for males and the fth leading behavioral risk factor for females. If these trends remain unchanged,
over 1 million more people will die from alcohol use in the Americas by 2025.