Black:White disparities: Declines in alcohol-related mortality but not total mortality or deaths from other causes

We used public CDC Wonder data to describe national mortality for the stratum of diseases considered 100% alcohol-related (CDC Alcohol Attributable Fractions Report). These include alcohol dependence syndrome; alcoholic liver disease, cardiomyopathy, chronic pancreatitis, degeneration of the nervous system, myopathy, polyneuropathy, and psychosis; alcohol poisoning; and suicide by and exposure to alcohol. Among women, net national changes in age-specific (25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74, and 75-84) black mortality rates/100,000 (1979-2005) were 6.2 to 0.5, 20.4 to 3.8, 28.7 to 8.3, 22.2 to 9.4, 12.4 to 6.3 (all p< 0.0001) and 3.3 to 3.6 (p=0.864). Corresponding black:white mortality rate ratios changed from 10.3 to 0.1, 5.0 to 0.9, 2.8 to 0.9, 1.8 to 1.2, 1.5 to 0.9, and 1.2 to 0.9. Among men, corresponding rate changes were 16.4 to 1.2, 55.9 to 7.7, 83.4 to 26.9, 77.3 to 36.7, 46.5 to 30.8 (all p<0.0001) and 13.9 to 20.8 (p=0.0495), while black:white mortality rate ratios were 6.1 to 0.6, 4.7 to 0.7, 3.1 to 1.0, 2.2 to 1.2, 1.4 to 1.2, and 0.95 to 1.2. Despite population growth, total black deaths from these causes declined from 3,914 (1979) to 2,278 (2005). Declines in ages 25-74 occurred throughout the observation period. National Health Interview Survey data from 1977 to 2003 show lower rates of current drinking and 5+ drinks per day among black adults. These findings need to be evaluated further in the context of persistently higher mortality among African Americans than whites in total mortality and deaths from many other causes.