Table 1.

Characteristics of all studies included in meta-analyses on alcohol use and all-cause mortality

	Sample size
	Studies (N = 87)		Risk estimates (N = 523)
Study characteristics	n	%	n	%
Gender
Male	61	52.14	276	52.77
Female	37	31.62	178	34.03
Both	19	16.24	69	13.19
Age (Mdn = 54.5 years, SD = 10.5)
19–49	32	36.78	189	36.14
50–59	29	33.33	194	39.09
60–78	26	29.89	140	26.77
Mainly Caucasian vs not
North America, Europe, Australia	77	88.51	460	87.95
Japan, China, India	10	11.47	63	12.05
Years of follow-up (M = 13.4 years, SD = 6.6)
3.7–9	37	42.53	191	36.52
10–15	22	25.29	178	34.03
16–40	28	32.18	154	29.45
Disease
No exclusion	53	60.92	320	61.19
Unhealthy excluded	34	39.08	203	38.81
Daily alcohol intake measure
Adequate	64	73.56	394	75.33
Not adequate	23	26.44	129	24.67
Studies with abstainer biasesa
Both former and occasional drinker biases	41	47.13	180	34.42
Former drinker bias only	24	27.59	140	26.77
Occasional drinker bias only	9	10.34	76	14.53
No bias	13	14.94	127	24.28

Notes: Mdn = median.

^aBoth = studies in which reference group included both former and occasional drinkers; former = studies in which reference group included former drinkers; occasional = studies in which reference group included occasional/low-volume but not former drinkers, and no bias = studies in which the reference group only included lifetime abstainers.