For the first time in more than a decade, in 2022, the number of registered alcoholics increased in Russia, according to data published in Rosstat’s 2023 Health Compendium.
Even the official statistics report an increase: in the period from 2010 to 2021, the number of newly diagnosed cases of alcohol dependence and alcohol psychosis decreased almost three times – from 153.9 thousand to 53.3 thousand.
However, after a decrease in the rate in 2021, in 2022 there were 54.2 thousand patients with newly discovered alcohol dependence under dispensary observation. Among them, 12.9 thousand people suffered from alcoholic psychosis. Since 2010, their number has decreased almost four times – from 47 thousand patients to 12.8 thousand in 2021.
At the end of 2022, the Ministry of Health reported that during the year the number of Russians with alcohol dependence syndrome in rural areas increased by 7%, the mortality rate among rural residents due to alcohol use also increased.
As “Kommersant” notes, the Ministry of Health attributes the increase in these cases to the coronavirus pandemic. The department believes that the reason is the “stress from the pandemic”, as well as the fact that inflation is outpacing the increase in excise taxes on alcohol.
Also at the end of 2023, however, the government approved a strategy to reduce alcohol consumption by 2030, which plans an ambitious reduction in indicators – from 8.9 liters of hard alcohol by 2023 to 7.8 liters by 2030. However, the ministry does not provide the statistics for 2023 – the first completely military year in Russia, admitting, however, that in the last two years – 2022 and 2023, the trend was reversed and went up.
“Kommersant” explicitly notes that in 2022, with the beginning of the so-called “special military operation” there was an extremely sharp jump in anxiety among the population of Russia, reaching a record 70%, marking the levels of the 90s of the last century.
