A report recently released by the World Health Organization (WHO) this year shows how much the average citizen, over the age of 15, drinks in a year. The data was recorded from 2024 for most countries around the world. The map, showing the range of liters of alcohol for each country’s average citizen, can be found here.

As the results show, Russia, Ukraine, and Portugal were among the biggest alcohol drinkers in the category of “more than 12.5 liters consumed in 2024.” The high amount of drinking in Russia and Ukraine is a big concern for the country where it has been shown by a study that the high number of early deaths in the country is due to the large amount of drinking. Causes these early deaths due to high alcohol drinking are from liver disease, alcohol poisoning, and car accidents & fights while drunk.

The WHO report also includes a world map with a scale for "least risky drinking patterns” to “most risky drinking patterns” determined through amount of alcohol consumed in single occasions, frequency of drinking events, etc. The data considers Russia and Ukraine to have the most risky drinking patterns, yet Portugal, with some of the highest amounts of drinking, has less risky drinking patterns. This report suggests the association between risky drinking patterns and deaths at an early age. 

Read more about the WHO report and each country’s extent of drinking and its risky drinking patterns here.