Drinkers in the UAE are consuming almost twice the global average in alcohol per year with the alarming rates putting them in the highest health risk categories, a new report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has found.

The consumption rate, 32.8 litres of pure alcohol equivalent a year per person compared to the global average of 17L/person, also outdid traditionally heavy-drinking western nations such as the UK, Ireland, US and Australia.

The report, which looked at consumption rates between 2008-10 in 194 WHO member states, found drinkers in Qatar were the next highest consumers of alcohol in the GCC with 22.7L/person, followed by Bahrain (21.2L/person), Oman (15.5L/person), Saudi (3.9L/person) and Kuwait (1.3L/person).

The report excluded tourists but included expatriate residents in each country. In the UAE, expats make up 85 percent of the population.

Globally, Indian alcohol drinkers recorded an average consumption rate of 28.7L/person annually, while half that amount was drank by people each year in the UK (13.8L/person), Ireland (14.7L/person), Australia (14.5L/person) and US (13.3L/person).

The report said the UAE’s drinking made it “most” at risk with a maximum score of five for years of life lost, with the Age-Standardisation Death Rate (ASDR) due to liver cirrhosis 14.5 per 100,000 people aged 15 and over, and Alcohol-Attributable Fraction (AAF) 27.95 percent.

When taking into account the entire UAE population aged 15 years or older, including non-drinkers, the UAE average for alcohol consumption was 4.3L/capita between 2008-10, though this had also increased from 2.5L/capita in 2003-05.

The same population-wide data was 2.1L/capita in Bahrain (down from 4L); 1.5L/capita in Qatar (up from 1.2L); 0.9L/capita in Oman (down from 1L), 0.2L/person in Saudi (down from 0.3L) and unchanged at 0.1L in Kuwait.

Globally the figure was 6.2L/person.

Using per capita rates, spirits were the preferred drink across most of the GCC, with the higher purity alcohol accounting for 98 percent of drinks in Saudi, 87 percent in the UAE and 85 percent in Qatar.

Beer was the next highest consumed alcoholic drink and topped the list in Kuwait (58 percent) and Oman (55 percent), but made up only a fraction of all alcohol drank in the UAE (10 percent), Saudi and Qatar (one percent).

Comparatively, beer made up 48 percent of all alcohol consumed in Ireland, 44 percent in Australia and 37 percent in the UK – all countries renowned for beer-drinking cultures.

WHO said worldwide, 3.3 million deaths in 2012 were due to harmful use of alcohol, warning that consumption can not only lead to dependence but also increases people’s risk of developing more than 200 diseases including liver cirrhosis and some cancers.

“In addition, harmful drinking can lead to violence and injuries,” it said, adding that the report also found harmful use of alcohol made people more susceptible to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia.

“More needs to be done to protect populations from the negative health consequences of alcohol consumption,” said Dr Oleg Chestnov, WHO assistant director-general for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health. “The report clearly shows that there is no room for complacency when it comes to reducing the harmful use of alcohol.”

WHO noted that 66 member states had written national alcohol policies in 2012, though only Oman and Saudi were recorded as having such a policy in the GCC with other countries in the region recording no information under that section.

The report said globally, 7.6 percent of men’s deaths and 4 percent of women’s deaths were from alcohol-related causes, with evidence women may be more vulnerable to some alcohol-related health conditions compared to men. In addition, the authors note that there is concern over the steady increase in alcohol use among women.

“We found that worldwide about 16 percent of drinkers engage in heavy episodic drinking - often referred to as ‘binge-drinking’ - which is the most harmful to health,” said Dr Shekhar Saxena, director for Mental Health and Substance Abuse at WHO. “Lower-income groups are more affected by the social and health consequences of alcohol. They often lack quality health care and are less protected by functional family or community networks.”

Globally, Europe had the highest regional-wide consumption of alcohol per capita, with some of its countries having particularly high consumption rates. Trend analysis shows that the consumption level was stable over the past five years in the region, as well as in Africa and the Americas, though increases had been reported in the South-East Asia and the Western Pacific regions.