Alcohol+use+in+Developed,+Developing+and+Third+World+countries

=**Alcohol Use In Developed, Developing, and Undeveloped Countries**=

[Green signifies developed, yellow signifies developing, and red signifies undeveloped. Grey means uncharted. This is from the UN Human Development Report of 2007.]


 * __Developed Countries__**

__United States of America__

America, as a major superpower in the world today, has a large influence on the rest of the world. How does drinking affect this country? When looking into the drinking habits of different Americans, it has been shown that women are much more likely to avoid alcohol than males. There seems to be many different factors to American drinking, through studying different people. University students who lived with their parents are less likely to consume large amounts of alcohol. According to a Harvard study, Americans drink more heavily than Canadians, although most Canadians drink for a longer span of time. Young people in America seem to gravitate towards alcohol more easily; younger students in the US are more likely to experiment with alcohol than their older counterparts. [From this graph you can see that the Americans in the United States have a higher alcohol consumption rate than United States resident from other countries. It also has the highest heavy alcohol usage.]

__Luxembourg__ Luxembourg is a pretty, relatively wealthy country in central Europe. It is a place many people would like to go to tour. How would alcohol use here compare to the United States? Eurocare has divulged themselves into an in depth study into alcohol consumption in Luxembourg. Over the years, drinking seems to have steadily increased, as well as wine consumption over beer or spirit. By 2001, people 15 and over were drinking about 4 more liters of pure alcohol via wine than in 1970. Many people in alcohol drink. In fact, if you bumped into a random person, above drinking age, in Luxembourg, studies by Eurocare show that 97.5% of the time, it will be a drinker. There is a lot of unrecorded drinking as well. Unrecorded alcohol consumption is about 1.0 liters per capita for a person older than 15. Interestingly enough, Chronic Morality decreased over the years even though alcohol consumption increased as a whole. Acute Morality seems to have decreased as a whole as well. People who avoid alcohol are surprisingly low, 1% for men, and 4% for women.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm [The above is a video on how the European Union will proceed to tackle the growing drinking problems in Europe]


 * __Developing Countries__**

__Laos__ Laos is a country in Southeast Asia, vastly different from both the US and Luxembourg. It is still developing, not as powerful as the major developed countries yet, but getting there. How will alcohol be consumed here? According to studies by who, the population over 15 have drank an average of 4 more liters of pure alcohol in 2001 than in 1961 per capita. However, it seems there is little to no wine consumed in Laos, compared to the sky high spirit consumption and the very low beer consumption. There are a very large number of lifetime abstainers of alcohol in Laos though, approximately 49.4% of the population, 29.5% consisting of males and 67.0% consisting of women. Compared to the abstainers, the numbers of heavy drinkers are very low. 2.7% of the population are heavy drinkers, but interestingly enough, more of these are men than women, 3.8% for men and 1.8% for women. This suggests that men drink more often than women in Laos, as the abstainer’s rate are much less, and the numbers of male heavy drinkers are about double the number of female heavy drinkers. As of the ages 18 to 24, only 50.9% of the population had not drunken, again most of them females. Between the ages 18 to 24, 11.5 of them become heavy drinkers, again most of them males. People in Laos are proved to drink much more freely in religious ceremonies and the like, and women in urban environments choose to drink more often than in rural areas.

__India__ India is another country in Southeast Asia. It is currently the fastest growling large economy in the world. Taking a survey on 413,143 people over the age of 10 in India, ScienceDirect brings us general information on alcohol consumption in India. It was proved in the national study by the researchers in John Hopkins University School of Medicine that men are more likely to take up drinking than women. 4.5% of the participants drank alcohol regularly, but men had 9.7 times more likely to drink alcohol regularly than women. Men in rural areas are proven to drink more than men in urban areas. Alcohol and drug use in India has risen significantly. The people in public health feel the need to control use in India.


 * __Undeveloped Countries__**

__Cameroon__ Cameroon is a country in western Africa; it still cannot compare to the modern, developed countries. Here, in studies by WHO, it was shown that over the period of 1961-2001, alcohol use has lowered by about 3 liters of pure alcohol per capita consumption, although wine consumption has increased a bit. In a study in Biyem-Assi, 67.2% of the population didn’t drink, 58.6% of the males and 74.2 of the females. It seems that people don’t drink as much in Cameroon due to their state of poverty, meaning they simply cannot afford to use their wealth on alcohol. It has been estimated by WHO that drinking one bottle of beer per week can quickly deplete a Cameroon citizen living in rural area’s income. However, it has been shown the populations of rural livers drink more than urban livers. However, unrecorded alcohol consumption is high in Cameroon. It is estimated at about 2.6 liters of pure alcohol per capita for the population over 15. Starting alcohol can severely ruin a Cameroon’s citizen’s financial situation, and drinkers are considered disruptive towards society.

__Sudan__ Sudan is the largest country in Africa. It is a country in unrest, fool of floods and the like. It is one of those countries that the UN works to help out of their tight situation. In Sudan, alcohol records were hard to receive after 1981, and thus, we do not know of the situation after 1981, although around 1975 a sharp increase of alcohol consumption occurred. People in Sudan do not drink wine, preferring beer over everything else, it seems. When examining 1569 prisoners in the main prisons of Khartoum, 32.2% of them used alcohol. Most of these drank spirits, which is more intoxicating than other forms of alcohol, though the main population seems to prefer beer. Unrecorded consumption averages at around 1.0 liters per capita consumption. Between 1979 and 1983, there were 1079 inmates who were in due to alcohol, and 87% was male. Between those years, 210 cases of homicide have occurred due to alcohol, as well as 5249 instances of drunken driving charges.

__Citations__ http://alcoholism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/Documents/Canadian1%2DpressRelease/ by Harvard School of Public Health about American versus Canadian college students http://www.eurocare.org/pdf/profiles/luxembourg.pdf by the World Health Organization about Luxembourg [|http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T63-4DTKDMY1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=813499b823ced91c74f14b0a266b89e3] by K.J. Neufeld, D.H. Peters, M. Rani, S. Bonu and R.K. Brooner about Indian people in India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:UN_Human_Development_Report_2007_2.svgHuman Development Report from UN 2007. http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/en/sudan.pdf by World Health Organization about Sudan http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/en/cameroon.pdf by the WHO about Cameroon http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/en/lao_democratic_republic.pdf by WHO for Laos http://www.iss.co.za/Af/maps/sudan.jpg map of Sudan http://mapoftheunitedstates.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/1680map2.jpg map of United States http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe/luxembourg.jpg map of Luxembourg http://www.andrearichichi.com/travel/laos/laos_rel_2003.jpg map of Laos http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/india_pol96.jpg map of India http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/cameroon_pol98.jpg map of Cameroon http://www.iss.co.za/Af/maps/sudan.jpg map of Sudan http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm video of the European Union's alcohol solution