Estimating the Prevalence of Alcoholism: Toward a Modification of the Jellinek Formula

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Abstract
A single national value for P, the percentage of cirrhosis of the liver deaths attributable to alcoholism, as used in the Jellinek formula for estimating the prevalence of alcoholism, may logically be expected to underestimate the prevalence of alcoholism in areas (or periods) with high prevalence rates and to overestimate it when prevalence is low. The factor PD, where D is the number of liver cirrhosis deaths, needs to be replaced by a factor D-Dn, where Dn is the number of liver cirrhosis deaths not attributable to alcoholism. In order to determine the value of Dn, a retrospective study of alcoholism among persons who die of liver cirrhosis is required. In the absence of such a study, the usual magnitude of Dn may be tentatively estimated to be in the vicinity of 4L, where L is the size of the population in units of hundred thousand. This estimate is based on the extent of liver cirrhosis mortality observed under conditions of minimum alcohol consumption.

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