According to the UN, countries are divided into two main categories, that is, developed and developing countries. This classification is informed by the economic status of these countries which include such factors as GNP, GDP, industrialization, standards of living, and per capita incomes among other drivers. It is not in doubt that rate of consumption of alcohol and problems that come with the consumption vary from one country or region to another.
Numerous different drinking habits and cultures, as well as attitudes toward alcohol consumption, exist all over the world. There are existing theoretical literature materials that compare the actual rates of consumption of alcohol across various countries, describing each of these entities to the differing trends of drinking cultures. Individual consumption rate is slated at 28.6% which translates to 1.76 liters. Across the world, close to 11.5% of the drinkers are episodic. According to the survey released by WHO (2009), the sector of alcohol consumption among adults accounted for 30%.
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This research compares countries into groups dividing them into categories that are either low or high per capita consumers of alcohol. These two groups are either undeveloped or developed country ( Dufour & Adamson, 2003) . It is important to note that these countries are mostly associated with many correlates which may be temperance movements or the dominance of spirits or wine in the regions.
All over the world, adults take an average of 5 liters of alcohol from beer, spirits, and wine on an annual basis. Of this, the average consumption of the same is highest in Europe. The second in the list is the United States of America while Africa comes third. This is evident that the rate of consumption is dependent on the economic development and as such depends on the financial muscles of these countries.
It is documented that the consumption of alcohol began at the same time at around 1980s. Since the inception of this habit, Europe has since taken the lead followed by USA and Africa for reasons indicated above. The western Pacific and the Southeast Asian regions are some of the lowest regions that have registered the lowest consumption rates. Notably, the rate of alcohol consumption in the Middle Eastern regions has been seen to have assumed stability or indicated some fall for reasons informed by socio-cultural events.
The figure below represents the trends of consumption of alcohol in various regions of the world
The rate of consumption of alcohol tends to converge across countries as indicated by the above graph. However, there are various disparities that are mainly informed by the varying dynamics in some of these countries (Schmidt,et al., 2010) . For example, the majority of individuals in the Middle East are Muslims and this is a major contributing factor for the decline in rate in consumption in the region. This argument should, however, take into account the fact that there are some countries in Africa and the Middle East that register high alcohol consumption but go unrecorded.
As a matter of summary, it is worth noting that the adults in the underdeveloped countries are more likely to abstain than their counterparts from the developed countries. In some parts of the world, drinking among adult women has been relatively low but this is a trend that is steadily changing. Moreover, development is a key factor that makes these heavy drinkers in the developed countries more feasible. As such, alcohol contributes to their adverse negative effects on their lives causing chronic illnesses to them.
References
Dufour, M. C., & Adamson, M. D. (2003). The epidemiology of alcohol-induced pancreatitis. Pancreas , 27 (4), 286-290.
Schmidt, L. A., Mäkelä, P., Rehm, J., & Room, R. (2010). Alcohol: equity and social determinants. Equity, social determinants and public health programmes , 11 .
