Alcohol and Violence-related Injury: Resutls from the WHO collaborative ER study in Korea

The role of alcohol in violence-related injuries has been well documented in numerous emergency room (ER) studies, but the relationship of alcohol to violence-related injury has not been well understood in Asian populations. This study examined the association between alcohol intake and violence-related versus unintentional injuries using data from emergency department visits (n=1963) in four Korean cities. Two consumption measures were examined for the period of 6 hours prior to the injury: total ethanol intake (log transformed) and a dichotomous measure of any intake. Logistic regression models estimated the association of violence-related injuries and alcohol intake prior to injury, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics including injury location. Of the total injuries, 8.71% were violence-related; among these, 67.7% had alcohol involvement compared to 19.8% among unintentional injuries. Patients incurring violent injuries also had significantly (p<0.01) higher acute consumption and BAC than those of their unintentionally injured counterparts. Both measures of alcohol consumption had significant positive associations with violence-related injuries. Being inside a restaurant/bar at the time of the injury was a strong mediator of the association between acute consumption and violence-related injuries, as the odds ratio decreased from 8.49 to 3.71 once the restaurant/bar variable was added to the multivariate logistic model. The strength of the alcohol-violence association also varied by study site. Given the strong relationship between alcohol consumption and violence-related injuries observed in this study, prevention and intervention strategies in Korea should include monitoring of alcohol consumption, especially in public dining and drinking establishments.