More young people in Canada are visiting EDs because of drinking alcohol

More people are visiting emergency departments after drinking alcohol, a new study finds. Researchers looked at more than 765,000 ED visits in Ontario, Canada’s largest province, and found a 175% increase in such visits between 2003 and 2016 among 25- to 29-year-olds. That spiked to a 240% increase in alcohol-related ED visits for young women, who were also more likely than men to be under Canada’s legal drinking age of 19. For both young men and women, visiting the ED for alcohol-related problems also led to more hospital admissions than other types of ED visits. Other countries, including the U.S., have experienced similar increases in alcohol-related visits to the ED, the authors behind the new study write, urging more research into the reasons behind the growing trend.