Alcohol-related hospitalizations--Indian Health Service and tribal hospitals, United States, May 1992.

Alcohol use is directly responsible for hospitalizations resulting from chronic conditions, such as alcoholic liver disease and alcoholic psychoses; in addition, alcohol use can be a contributing factor in other conditions, such as infectious diseases and injuries, that require hospital admission. Based on discharge data from Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities and CDC's National Hospital Discharge Survey (1), the proportion of alcohol-related hospitalizations (ARHs) among American Indians/Alaskan Natives has been reported as 2.5 times that for the total U.S. population. However, these estimates rely on a limited set of alcohol-defined diagnoses that are primarily associated with chronic alcoholism. To characterize more accurately the relation of alcohol use to inpatient admissions to IHS and tribally operated hospitals in the United States, IHS conducted a 1-day survey of ARHs in these facilities on Monday, May 18, 1992. This report summarizes preliminary results from the survey.