CDC says alcohol contributes to 20% of Indian, Eskimo hospitalizations

ATLANTA — Alcohol contributes to about one-fifth of hospitalizations among Indians and Eskimos 15 or older, a higher percentage than commonly recognized, according to a federal study released Thursday.

That 20 percent figure includes not just the chronic alcoholism that doctors usually report, but other illnesses and injuries caused by intoxication, said Dr. Jonathan Sugarman of the federal Indian Health Service in Seattle.

“The usual reporting of alcohol-related hospitalizations really shows just the tip of the iceberg,” Sugarman said. “It will help if one could identify alcohol-related hospitalizations in people who are not obvious chronic alcoholics.”

To do that, health officials conducted a one-day survey of 47 Indian Health Service and tribally operated hospitals. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control released the results Thursday.

Of 899 patients over age 15 who were in the hospitals on May 18, 20.7 percent were there for alcohol-related illnesses.

General alcoholism and cirrhosis caused by alcoholism made up most of those cases — about 32 percent.

Infectious diseases and injuries that doctors said were alcohol-related made up 15 percent each, while gastrointestinal bleeding accounted for 9 percent. Withdrawal symptoms related to alcohol accounted for 7.7 percent of the cases and acute intoxication accounted for 2.6 percent.

Various other alcohol-related illnesses accounted for the remaining percentages.

The proportion of alcohol-related hospitalizations among Indians and Eskimos has been estimated at 2.5 times that of the general U.S. population, but doctors say those numbers usually reflect only illnesses brought on by acute alcoholism.

When physicians look only at chronic alcoholism, “the contribution of alcohol use to overall morbidity may be substantially underestimated,” the CDC concluded.