The association between beverage-specific alcohol consumption and mortality among road users in Russia, 1965-2019

A vast body of literature suggests a relationship between alcohol consumption and road traffic fatalities. Despite an impressive downward trend in road traffic fatalities in Russia, the death rate is still unacceptably high. Far fewer studies have differentiated the association by road users and types of alcoholic beverages. This populationbased study aims to estimate the associations of total and beverage-specific alcohol per capita (15+) consumption (APC) based on official alcohol sales statistics and road traffic mortality using police data on the number of deaths by road users. The study covers the period 1965-2019. We employed a first-order difference linear regression model with robust and autocorrelation consistent standard errors, controlling for a level of motorisation. To examine the possible evolution of the phenomenon, we repeated models separately for three consecutive periods (1965-1984, 1985-2002, 2003-2019). The findings suggest that an annual 1-litre increase in APC (in litres of pure alcohol) associated with a corresponding increase in the death rates (per 100,000 inhabitants) of both unprotected road users and motor vehicle occupants by about 0.3 (p < 0.01) and 0.4 (p < 0.05), respectively. A beverage-specific analysis for 1965-2019 revealed a positive and significant association between mortality of pedestrians and cyclists and the consumption of strong alcoholic beverages (p < 0.05) as well as mortality of drivers and passengers and the consumption of weaker alcoholic beverages, primarily beer (p < 0.01). Various road safety strategies should be applied to prevent road traffic fatalities of road users.