Pattern of drinking has often been linked to two main categories of disease outcome, injuries (both unintentional and intentional) and cardiovascular risk (mainly ischaemic heart disease -IHD; [1;9]). Within the context of the current Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA), pattern of drinking was mainly operationalised as the presence of heavy drinking occasions, defined as 60 or more grams of pure alcohol on one single occasion (corresponding to 5+ drinks in most countries; for details on prior definitions see [9;10]). Thus, in this paper, heavy alcohol consumption will be defined as 60+ g per occasion, unless otherwise noted.
