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July 1, 2019 – One fifth of adults — or an estimated 53 million people in the United States — suffer from other people’s boozing annually, making this “a significant public health issue,” according to a new studypublished in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. “One thing to think about with the 1 in 5 number is that it is only limited to a snapshot in time of about a year. So, probably more people have actually been harmed by someone else’s drinking at other times in their life,” study author Katherine Karriker-Jaffe, a senior scientist with the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute in Emeryville, Calif., tells CNN.
Researchers analyzed responses from 8,750 adults interviewed in 2015 for the National Alcohol’s Harm to Others Survey and the National Alcohol Survey. Subjects were asked whether they experienced any of the 10 types of harms — caused by someone who had been drinking alcohol — in a 12-month period. The damages included everything from traffic accidents, physical abuse, marital problems, property damage and financial issues.
