The rate of alcohol-attributable mortality was twice as high for Māori (file image). Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
New research has shown the number of hospitalisations caused by alcohol nationwide in 2018 alone would fill half of all the hospital beds in the Wellington region.
The latest data from 2018, has shown alcohol to be a cause in more than 900 deaths, 1250 cancers, 29,282 hospitalisations, and 128,963 ACC claims in a single year.
Of those deaths, 42 percent were from cancer, 33 percent from injuries, and 25 percent from conditions such as liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis and epilepsy.
Men accounted for the vast majority of health harms, and the rate of alcohol-attributable mortality was twice as high for Māori.
Co-author Dr Anja Mizdrak, from the University of Otago's Department of Public Health, said the findings were not surprising, as previous research locally and overseas had consistently shown alcohol contributed significantly to disease.
While the data used to write the paper, titled Estimated alcohol-attributable health burden in Aotearoa New Zealand (2024), was from six years ago, the authors stressed the results would be similar today.
"Our alcohol consumption hasn't changed much, and nor have rates of a lot of these chronic conditions that are contributing to the [health] burden."
The study was funded by the Health Promotion Agency, now part of Te Whatu Ora.
Mizdrak said the results were also underestimates, failing to capture the harm to those around the drinker, like victims of drink-driving or the knock-on impacts to the health system.
"We've just looked at adults, and there's also harm for children. We haven't been able to quantify things like fetal alcohol syndrome."
She said the number of hospitalisations due to alcohol nationwide in 2018 alone was equivalent to half of the Wellington region's hospital capacity.
"There've been measures that have been repeatedly recommended for decades," she said. "We should restrict alcohol marketing, reduce the availability, increase taxes, and implement a nationwide screening and brief intervention programme."
In June, Cabinet agreed to increase the alcohol levy, which funds alcohol harm reduction measures, for the first time since 2009 - but the change added less than half a cent to the price of a standard can of beer.
Associate minister for health Matt Doocey said in a statement: "This Government is committed to reducing alcohol harm in New Zealand.
"Just recently I announced an increase to the alcohol levy, the first increase in 15 years.
"The alcohol levy allows funding for initiatives to reduce alcohol harm such as the initiative announced recently by Minister Reti on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. I have tasked officials to undertake an assessment of all alcohol harm reduction programs to inform a new alcohol action plan to guide levy setting for future years."
The change increased the funds collected from the levy from $11.5 million to $16.6 million, which experts said was woefully inadequate compared to the scale of alcohol harm.
Alcohol Healthwatch executive director Andrew Galloway also said the research results had not come as a surprise, as past studies had shown similar results, and the stats were not improving.
"The number of hazardous drinkers in the population is still around 670,000 aged over 15," he said.
There were policy levers the government could be pulling which had worked overseas.
There had been increases to the minimum unit price in Scotland, followed by a 13.4 percent reduction in deaths wholly attributable to alcohol consumption, he said.
Comparing the effort put into other causes of death, like the road toll which has well surpassed 300 for the past five years, "alcohol does seem like a poor cousin", he said.
