Research Guides: Health Statistics: Alcohol / Substance Abuse

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Alcohol's Effects on Health
Includes alcohol basics, special populations, and getting help.
Alcohol Facts & Statistics
Up-to-date statistics on alcohol consumption.
Epidemiologic Data
Statistical summaries of data collected or compiled by NIAAA on alcohol consumption, alcohol-related mortality and morbidity, and other alcohol-related problems and consequences.

National Institute on Drug Abuse

DrugFacts
Plain language research summaries.
National Addiction & HIV Data Archive Program
Covers a wide range of legal and illicit drugs (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, synthetic drugs, and others) and the trajectories, patterns, and consequences of drug use as well as related predictors and outcomes.
Trends & Statistics
Resources covering a variety of drug related issues, including information on drug usage, emergency room data, prevention and treatment programs, and other research findings.

Substance Abuse & Mental Health Data Archive

Substance Abuse & Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA)
Provides public-use data files, file documentation, and access to restricted-use data files to support a better understanding of this critical area of public health.
Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN)
Nationwide public health surveillance system that will improve ED monitoring of substance use crises, including those related to opioids.
National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS)
Provides the mechanism for quantifying the dynamic character and composition of the US substance abuse treatment delivery system.
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
Primary source of information on the prevalence, patterns, and consequences of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use and abuse and mental disorders in the US civilian, non-institutionalized population, age 12 and older.
Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS)
Contains records on admissions aged 12 or older, and includes information on admission demographics (age, sex, race/ethnicity, employment status, etc.) and substance abuse characteristics (substances used, age at first use, route of use, frequency of use, number of prior admissions, etc.). TEDS-A records the admissions, and TEDS-D records the discharges.

International Statistics

Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health and Treatment of Substance Use Disorders by World Health Organization
Publication Date: June 25, 2024

Provides an overview of global alcohol consumption, alcohol-related harm, policy responses, and treatment capacities for alcohol and drug use disorders. Based on WHO data from Member States, it aligns with SDG health target 3.5, which calls for strengthened prevention and treatment of substance abuse. It updates trends in alcohol consumption, the alcohol-attributable disease burden, and policy responses. Additionally, it assesses the status of treatment for substance use disorders and introduces a new service capacity index to monitor progress on SDG health target 3.5. The report concludes with recommendations for accelerating progress towards this target.
World Drug Report 2022 by the United Nations
Publication Date: June 2022

Provides an in-depth analysis of global drug markets and examines the nexus between drugs and the environment within the bigger picture of the Sustainable Development Goals, climate change and environmental sustainability.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Collects, analyzes, and reports data on extent, patterns and trends in drug use and its health consequences through the Annual Reports Questionnaires (ARQ) submitted by Member States.
Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme
Works with governments to assist them in generating and analysing data on the situation with respect to amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and new psychoactive substances (NPS).
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction: Data
Reference point on drugs and drug addiction information in Europe.
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction: Countries
Access top-level overviews of the drug situation by country in all EMCDDA reporting countries, covering drug supply, use and public health problems as well as drug policy and responses.
Narcotic Drugs
International Narcotics Control Board

Statista

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Alcohol Use
FastStats – Statistics by Topic
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
The world’s largest, on-going telephone health survey system, tracking health conditions and risk behaviors in the United States yearly since 1984. Currently, data are collected monthly in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam.
Chronic Disease Indicators (CDI)
Set of surveillance indicators that enables public health professionals and policymakers to retrieve uniformly defined state and selected metropolitan-level data for chronic diseases and risk factors that have a substantial impact on public health.
Drug Overdoses
FastStats – Statistics by Topic
Illicit Drug Use
FastStats – Statistics by Topic
Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS)
Monitors health-related behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death and disability among youth and adults.

Adolescent Drinking & Drug Use

College Alcohol-Related Statistics
Rates of students’ alcohol consumption, including binge and heavy drinking, and negative consequences to students’ alcohol use, including deaths, assaults, and sexual assault/date rape.
College Drinking
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Underage Drinking
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

America's Health Rankings

Alcohol and Household Characteristics
Explore household characteristics that contribute to health. Includes measures on children in poverty, poverty (ages 65+), food insecurity, excessive drinking, unemployment, per capita income, concentrated disadvantage, and high school completion.
Drinking, Disease and Death
Examine measures of alcohol use, disease and related causes of death. Includes cognitive difficulty (ages 65+), high blood pressure, premature death, falls (ages 65+), early death (ages 65-74), occupational fatalities, chlamydia, excessive drinking, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and depression.
Drugs and Other Substance Use
Unhealthy behaviors are frequently related to each other either because they are done at the same time or one leads to another. Explore more about these behaviors that include tobacco use (youth), smoking, excessive drinking, cannabis use, non-medical use of prescription opioids, illicit opioid use, illicit drug use (excluding opioids and cannabis), non-medical drug use (past year), and e-cigarette use.
Drug Use and Death
Find out more about how drug use and drug deaths vary. Includes measures on suicide, premature death, frequent mental distress, drug deaths, non-medical use of prescription opioids, illicit opioid use, and non-medical drug use (past year).
Drug Use and Household Characteristics
See more about household characteristics that contribute to health. Includes measures on drug deaths, children in poverty, food insecurity, unemployment, cannabis use, per capita income, non-medical use of prescription opioids, illicit opioid use, illicit drug use (excluding opioids and cannabis), non-medical drug use (past year), concentrated disadvantage, and high school completion.
Problematic Consumption Among Adults
Explore different measures of excessive drinking, including separate measures for ages 65+ and women.
Smoking, Alcohol, Drugs and Associated Health Behaviors
Unhealthy behaviors are often related to each other because they are done together or one leads to another. Explore more about these behaviors. Includes measures on teen births, insufficient sleep, smoking, physical inactivity, excessive drinking, non-medical drug use (past year), e-cigarette use, high-risk HIV behaviors, fruit and vegetable consumption, and exercise.