Living alone is associated with an increased risk of alcohol-related mortality—from alcohol-related diseases and accidents—according to a Finnish study published in this week’s PLoS Medicine, suggesting that a lack of social relationships should be regarded as a potential risk factor for death from alcohol related causes. However, the idea that a lack of social relationships is a risk factor for death is still not widely recognised by health professionals, policy makers, or the public.
Researchers led by Kimmo Herttua from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, in Helsinki, found a greater increase in alcohol-related deaths (particularly fatal liver disease) among people living alone compared to married and cohabiting people after an alcohol price reduction in 2004, suggesting that people living alone are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of increased alcohol availability.
The authors analyzed information on about 80% of all people who died in Finland between 2000 and 2007 and found that roughly 18,200 people–two-thirds of whom lived alone–died from underlying alcohol-related causes such as liver disease and alcoholic poisoning or contributory alcohol-related factors such as accidents, violence and cardiovascular disease.
Furthermore, for people living alone (particularly those aged 50