Methods:

The authors used the California Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Databases to evaluate the association between alcohol abuse and incident atrial fibrillation (AF), myocardial infarction (MI), and heart failure (HF). California residents >21 years old who received care in a California ambulatory surgical unit, emergency department, or inpatient hospital unit between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2009 were included. Patients without race or gender information, those who resided outside of California, or those with a first encounter on the final day of the study period were excluded. International Classification of Diseases-9th Edition (ICD-9) and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes were used for disease identification for alcohol abuse, MI, HF, AF, and covariates. The primary outcome was incidence of AF, MI, or HF. Multivariable models adjusting for age, sex, race, hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease (for the AF and HF outcomes), HF (for the AF and MI outcomes), chronic kidney disease, valvular heart disease (for the AF and HF outcomes), dyslipidemia, obesity, obstructive sleep apnea, cigarette smoking, and income were used. Cohort participants were censored upon incident diagnosis of the outcome.