STAT published the next two articles in its “The Deadliest Drug” series on excessive alcohol use — one on recommendations for addressing the alcohol epidemic in the U.S. and one highlighting charts that explain the crisis.

Recommendations: STAT interviewed more than 100 experts and identified ways the U.S. could address its alcohol epidemic:

• Screen early and often. Providers should do a better job of asking patients about family history of alcohol misuse and conducting thorough screenings of people at high risk. Pediatric practices should use more robust questionnaires, and clinicians and researchers should pay special attention to people with metabolic diseases and women (including pregnant individuals). Other health workers, like dentists and pharmacists, should receive training in substance use screening.
• Add “nudges” to health system, including by adding alcohol questionnaires to clinician workflows.
• Get creative with funding. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can include alcohol in existing notices of funding opportunity and messaging. States can open existing funding streams to include alcohol work.
• Get the word out. HHS, states, and cities should invest in public messaging about the health risks of alcohol.
• Overhaul payment. This includes better parity enforcement, increased reimbursement for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and collaborative care, and fixing Medicare’s limited coverage for addiction care.
• Dive into data, including by repurposing state and federal systems that monitor suicide risk and opioid overdoses to also track alcohol measures.
• Require more doctor training. Training on alcohol should be woven into all aspects of medical education. Health professional accrediting groups can add questions about alcohol screening and treatment to board exams.
• Align price of alcohol with inflation. Congress should raise alcohol taxes and ensure they rise with inflation.
• Embrace harm reduction by helping a lot of people drink less rather than trying to get a few to quit altogether.
• Tighten marketing rules. This includes cracking down on marketing that reaches minors and regulating alcohol marketing like tobacco (with language tightly controlled and TV/radio ads banned).
• Improve alcohol labels, including adding warning labels and nutrition/allergen information.
• Streamline bureaucracy, including empowering a single agency to oversee alcohol policy across government and declaring a public health emergency around alcohol-related deaths.

Charts: The other article highlights data charts that capture the toll, emerging risks, shifting usage, and economic stakes of alcohol in America.

• It includes charts on alcohol-related emergency department visits, the economic cost of excessive alcohol use, alcohol’s death toll, trends in alcohol use, alcohol’s relationship with metabolic disease, comparisons to other countries, alcohol use during pregnancy, industry money in politics, and alcohol research funding.