Alcohol and health in Central and Eastern European Union countries – status quo and alcohol policy options

Abstract

The aim of this narrative review is to give an overview of alcohol consumption, attributable health harm, and potential alcohol control policies to reduce this harm in five Central and Eastern European Union countries: Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. The overall level of alcohol consumption was high, with the two highest-consuming countries in the world being situated in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Latvia), and all five of these countries being in the top 15% of World Health Organization member states with respect to consumption. Accordingly, alcohol-attributable health harm was high. Implementation of alcohol control policies could be improved, especially the implementation of pricing policies such as taxation increases. A moderate increase of the tax share on alcohol could result in thousands of lives being saved in Central and Eastern Europe in a single year. As taxation increases not only save lives, but also increase state revenue, the implementation of this alcohol control measure should be made a priority.

Designing and implementing an experimental survey on knowledge and perceptions about alcohol warning labels

“…Norway and Sweden fall into this pattern but have recently undergone a change towards wine drinking. This group also contains the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, that show historically higher levels of alcohol consumption due to their affiliation with the former Soviet Union (Rehm, Štelemėkas, et al., 2021 ).…”

Trends of alcohol-attributable deaths in Lithuania 2001–2021: epidemiology and policy conclusions

“…Lithuania is the largest of the Baltic countries in the northeast part of the European Union (EU), and had 2.87 million inhabitants in 2023 [ 1 ]. Its alcohol per capita consumption (APC) among the population 15 years old and older has been among the highest globally in recent decades [ 2 – 4 ]; consequently, alcohol-attributable morbidity and mortality has been substantial in recent comparative risk assessments (CRA; [ 5 , 6 ]). However, the most recently published global CRAs for alcohol use only cover the years 2016 [ 5 ] and 2019 (Global Burden of Disease Study: [ 6 ]).…”

Influence of Selected Indicators of Healthcare System Functioning Evaluation on the Health Result

“…Healthcare public health (HCPH) is one of the three main pillars of public health, alongside health improvement and protection [ 4 , 5 ]. Timely and effective care can significantly contribute to improving the health of the population.…”