Per capita wine consumption

As Americans have drunk more wine per capita, fewer of them have drowned in swimming pools, a correlation that defies the intuition that alcohol and water are a dangerous combination. The coefficient is -0.927 across seventeen years, during which wine consumption has risen steadily and pool drownings have declined, suggesting either that wine drinkers are exceptionally cautious swimmers or that the correlation has nothing to do with either wine or swimming. The sommelier and the lifeguard: allies in a war they do not know they are fighting.

Americans drank more wine in 2020 than in any year on record as lockdowns turned living rooms into bars, while that same housebound summer saw backyard-pool drownings rise to decade highs. The correlation isn't about alcohol and water — it's about what happens when an entire country is at home all day with both within reach.

Seventeen years of wine consumption rising and drownings declining is a correlation that sounds like a public health paradox and is actually just a portrait of affluent suburban life. The wine is poured, the pool is fenced, and the correlation between them is nothing more than the same household doing two unrelated things simultaneously. Cheers to the pool fence.