How far can we trust the latest Global Burden of Disease study?

🎵 Podcast feature 🎵

In the summer, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) group published a study that looked at alcohol consumption and harm, and suggested older people may benefit from drinking, while people under 40 should not drink.

This conclusion was lambasted by a number of alcohol researchers, including Colin Angus in an IAS blog and Professor Tim Stockwell in a Movendi blog, who criticised the study’s analysis and the data the conclusions were based on.

In our podcast we spoke to Professor Stockwell about the major issues of the study, including:

- Why the study has reported 1 million fewer alcohol deaths compared to its 2018 publication, despite no fall in global alcohol consumption

- How various biases throw off studies and suggest health benefits of alcohol

- Whether we should now distrust the GBD group

- The difficulties of understanding risk

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