In the first national survey of its kind, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday said the majority of alcohol-related deaths among Indians were centered in the Indian Health Service's Northern Plains region, which stretches from Montana to Michigan and includes North Dakota and Minnesota.
The CDC researchers examined death certificates recorded from 2001 to 2005. Traffic accidents and alcoholic liver disease were the two leading causes of alcohol-related deaths, according to the report, each contributing about a fourth of the 1,514 deaths. Other causes included homicide and suicide.
The report said 11.7 percent of deaths among Native Americans and Alaska Natives between 2001 and 2005 were alcohol-related, compared with 3.3 percent for the U.S. as a whole. About two-thirds of the Indians whose deaths were alcohol-related were men, and nearly two-thirds were younger than 50. Seven percent were younger than 20, the report found.
The federal agency is now calling state, local and tribal governments for action in the Northern Plains region that include some of the most economically challenged in the nation.
