The National Center for Alcohol Statistics (NCAS) aggregates alcohol-related data from federal health and research agencies — NIAAA, SAMHSA, CDC, NHTSA, and others — and makes it searchable, comparable, and citable for researchers, journalists, educators, and policymakers.
Government data on alcohol is real, detailed, and largely free. It is also scattered across a dozen agencies, buried in annual PDF reports, and presented in formats that make cross-state or cross-year comparison nearly impossible without significant technical work. NCAS does that work so you don’t have to.
What we do with the data
The federal government conducts excellent alcohol research. The NIAAA’s Apparent Per Capita Alcohol Consumption dataset runs back to 1977. SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health has interviewed 70,000+ Americans annually for decades. The CDC’s PLACES project produces modeled binge-drinking estimates for all 3,144 US counties. The FBI tracks DUI arrests by individual police agency. NHTSA records every fatal crash in the country, coded for alcohol involvement.
None of these datasets are designed to talk to each other. None are presented in a way that makes it easy to answer the questions people actually have, like which states have the highest alcohol death rates, or how binge drinking rates have changed for adults in their 20s since 2010, or what the economic cost of excessive drinking looks like broken out by state.
We build that view. Specifically, we:
- Cross-reference multiple federal datasets to produce statistics that no single agency publishes. Linking NIAAA per-capita consumption data with CDC mortality data, for example, allows us to estimate alcohol-attributable death rates that are comparable across states.
- Produce state-by-state rankings and comparisons across more than a dozen indicators, from binge drinking prevalence to DUI arrest rates to economic costs.
- Create demographic breakdowns by age, sex, and income that require combining NSDUH, BRFSS, and NCHS microdata.
- Track year-over-year trends across the full historical range of each dataset, rather than reporting only the most recent year.
- Normalize for population so that raw counts become rates that can be compared fairly across states with very different populations.
- Flag methodology changes when survey redesigns or reporting changes create breaks in time series — the kind of caveat that rarely makes it into the headlines but matters for accurate interpretation.
Our data sources
The table below lists our primary sources, what each covers, the geographic detail available, and how frequently each is updated.
| Dataset | What it covers | Geographic detail | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSDUHSAMHSA | Alcohol use disorder prevalence, binge and heavy drinking, past-month use, treatment utilization — by age, sex, income, and race | National annually; state-level via 2-year combined estimates | Annual |
| BRFSS / PLACESCDC | Binge drinking and heavy drinking prevalence, model-based estimates for all US counties, cities, and census tracts | State, county, city, census tract, ZIP code | Annual |
| NVSS / NCHSCDC | Alcohol-attributable deaths, liver disease mortality, alcohol-related cause-of-death records | National and state | Annual (2-year lag) |
| FARSNHTSA | Every fatal motor vehicle crash in the US, coded for alcohol involvement, BAC test results, and drunk-driver status | State, county, individual crash coordinates | Annual |
| Surveillance Reports / APISNIAAA | Apparent per-capita alcohol consumption by beverage type (beer, wine, spirits) going back to 1977; economic costs of excessive drinking; state alcohol policy data | National and state | Annual |
| UCR / NIBRSFBI | DUI arrests, liquor law violations, and drunkenness arrests by state and individual law enforcement agency | National, state, agency (effectively city/county) | Annual |
| Monitoring the FutureUniversity of Michigan / NIH | Annual survey of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders; the primary source for long-run youth drinking trends (12th grade data since 1975) | National | Annual |
| County Health RankingsUniversity of Wisconsin PHI | Compiled county-level excessive drinking rates derived from BRFSS; ranked and cleaned for easy comparison | All US counties | Annual |
| GHO / OECDWHO / OECD | Per-capita alcohol consumption, heavy episodic drinking rates, and alcohol-attributable deaths for 150+ countries | Country-level | Annual |
Data limitations you should know
Federal alcohol data is good. It is not perfect. We are transparent about the following limitations across our published materials:
Federal data lags 1–3 years. Most statistics we publish reflect data collected one to three years before the current date. The most recent NSDUH national estimates typically reflect the prior calendar year; state-level NSDUH estimates require combining two years of data, introducing additional lag. NHTSA FARS data is typically published 12–18 months after the reference year.
Survey-based estimates carry uncertainty. Binge drinking prevalence figures from BRFSS and NSDUH are survey-based, not administrative counts. The CDC PLACES county-level data is model-based (using BRFSS as inputs), not direct observation. Confidence intervals for small-population estimates can be wide. We note these limitations in individual articles where relevant.
Alcohol consumption is systematically underreported. Survey respondents report roughly 40–60% of alcohol sales that show up in tax data. Consumption figures derived from surveys are therefore conservative. NIAAA’s apparent per-capita consumption data (derived from tax and sales data) is generally considered more accurate than survey-based figures for measuring total volume.
Reporting coverage varies by state and year. FBI DUI arrest data relies on voluntary reporting by law enforcement agencies. Coverage has improved significantly since the transition to NIBRS, but historical comparisons across states should account for variation in reporting completeness.
Methodology changes create breaks in time series. The NSDUH underwent a significant redesign in 2015. The FBI transitioned from UCR to NIBRS in 2021. Where these changes affect trend comparability, we note it in the relevant fact sheets.
Disclaimer
Neither the NCAS team nor any of our contract writers are medical doctors, psychologists, or other health and wellness professionals. All content on this website is intended for general informational purposes and does not in any way constitute medical advice.
If you are struggling with alcohol use, the right person to talk to is your doctor or a licensed healthcare professional. The SAMHSA National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) provides free, confidential support and referrals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
No government affiliation
The National Center for Alcohol Statistics is an independent organization. We are not affiliated with, funded by, or endorsed by any federal, state, or local government agency. Our use of publicly available government data does not imply any official relationship with the agencies that produce it.
If you have questions about our data or methods, or if you’ve spotted an error, please use our contact form. We take corrections seriously.