Although there is widespread perception that the burden of alcohol and drugs abuse is relatively common around the world [1], no recent epidemiologic information has been published in support of this assumption to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, in this concise report we present an update on worldwide epidemiology of alcohol and drug abuse disorders, based on official data of the World Health Organization (WHO) [2]. Information from the last update (year 2016) of the WHO database on burden of diseases, expressed as cause-specific disability-adjusted life year (DALYs) or mortality, is hence summarized in Table 1, along with the corresponding figures for the year 2000.
