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Data

Average per capita alcohol consumption in 15-19 year olds

What you should know about this indicator

How is this data described by its producer?

Rationale

The total alcohol per capita consumption (APC) comprises both the recorded and the unrecorded APC, which together provide a more accurate estimate of the level of alcohol consumption in a country, and as a result, portray trends of alcohol consumption in the adult population (15 years of age and older) in a more precise way. Drinking alcohol can associated with developing alcohol use disorder or dependence and higher risk of mental and behavioural disorders. It is a major risk for liver cirrhosis, some cancers and cardiovascular diseases as well as injuries resulting from violence and accidents. Beyond health consequences, the harmful use of alcohol brings significant social and economic losses to individuals, their families and society at large.

Definition

Total APC is defined as the total (sum of three-year average recorded and three-year average unrecorded APC, adjusted for three-year average tourist consumption) amount of alcohol consumed per adult (15+ years) over a calendar year, in litres of pure alcohol. Recorded alcohol consumption refers to official statistics (production, import, export, and sales or taxation data), while the unrecorded alcohol consumption refers to alcohol which is not taxed and is outside the usual system of governmental control. Tourist consumption takes into account tourists visiting the country and inhabitants visiting other countries. Positive figures denote alcohol consumption of outbound tourists being greater than alcohol consumption by inbound tourists, negative numbers the opposite. Tourist consumption is based on UN tourist statistics.

Method of measurement

See measurement method for recorded APC, unrecorded APC, and tourist APC.

Method of estimation

Sum of recorded and unrecorded APC, adjusted for tourist consumption.

Average per capita alcohol consumption in 15-19 year olds
Total APC is defined as the total (sum of three-year average recorded and three-year average unrecorded APC, adjusted for three-year average tourist consumption) amount of alcohol consumed per adult (15+ years) over a calendar year, in litres of pure alcohol. Recorded alcohol consumption refers to official statistics (production, import, export, and sales or taxation data), while the unrecorded alcohol consumption refers to alcohol which is not taxed and is outside the usual system of governmental control. Tourist consumption takes into account tourists visiting the country and inhabitants visiting other countries. Positive figures denote alcohol consumption of outbound tourists being greater than alcohol consumption by inbound tourists, negative numbers the opposite. Tourist consumption is based on UN tourist statistics.
Source
World Health Organization - Global Health Observatory (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 19, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
2010–2010
Unit
rate

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

World Health Organization – Global Health Observatory

The GHO data repository is WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for its 194 Member States. It provides access to over 1000 indicators on priority health topics including mortality and burden of diseases, the Millennium Development Goals (child nutrition, child health, maternal and reproductive health, immunization, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected diseases, water and sanitation), non communicable diseases and risk factors, epidemic-prone diseases, health systems, environmental health, violence and injuries, equity among others.

Retrieved on
May 19, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/data/gho
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization. 2025. Global Health Observatory data repository. http://www.who.int/gho/en/.

The GHO data repository is WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for its 194 Member States. It provides access to over 1000 indicators on priority health topics including mortality and burden of diseases, the Millennium Development Goals (child nutrition, child health, maternal and reproductive health, immunization, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected diseases, water and sanitation), non communicable diseases and risk factors, epidemic-prone diseases, health systems, environmental health, violence and injuries, equity among others.

Retrieved on
May 19, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/data/gho
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization. 2025. Global Health Observatory data repository. http://www.who.int/gho/en/.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Average per capita alcohol consumption in 15-19 year olds”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

World Health Organization - Global Health Observatory (2025) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Health Organization - Global Health Observatory (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Average per capita alcohol consumption in 15-19 year olds” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “Global Health Observatory” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

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Data API

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/alcohol-consumption-in-15-19-year-olds.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear