Covid lockdowns linked to increased drinking at home: Study
It has been over two years since the onset of the global pandemic. In 2020, when the world was shut down to curb the spread of deadly Covid-19, it highly impacted the drinking practices in homes. A recent study has looked into the same.
As per the recent research published in the 'Addiction Journal', the lockdown measures throughout 2020 were linked to people in Scotland and England drinking more at home.
Researchers from the University of Sheffield and the University of Glasgow used data on nearly 300,000 adult drinkers to assess the impact of COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 on drinking habits.
While people consume roughly the same quantity of alcohol during periods of restriction as they did when no rules were in place, lockdowns appeared to be associated with a shift in patterns toward at-home, late-night drinking, according to the study.
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While the long-term effects of these recent changes are unknown, the study authors warned that as we go into a period with fewer constraints, these new drinking habits should be closely monitored.
Pubs and restaurants were shut during the first UK lockdown, limiting the types of places where individuals could drink alcohol. From July 2020, restrictions were gradually eased, allowing pubs and eateries to operate.
However, in September 2020, a series of national and local restrictions were imposed in response to rising case numbers, affecting hospitality settings yet again.
The study looked at 41,500 adult drinkers in Scotland and over 250,000 adult drinkers in England, focusing on the initial March 2020 lockdown, the lifting of restrictions in July 2020, and the onset of new restrictions in September 2020 until December 2020.
While figures show no statistical change in the total number of alcohol units consumed each week during different periods of the pandemic's first year, a more detailed analysis revealed that lockdown restrictions were linked to people starting to drink later in the day and more solitary drinking in Scotland, where the proportion of people living alone is higher.
"This perhaps reflects changes in people's routines and the absence of opportunities for daytime socialising such as going to the pub with colleagues after work," says Dr Abigail Stevely, a co-author of the study from the University of Sheffield's Alcohol Research Group.
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According to the findings, shop-bought alcohol consumption soared after the March 2020 lockdown and stayed consistently higher than previous years throughout the rest of 2020, even when lockdown restrictions were removed. Meanwhile, following the March 2020 lockdown, hospitality alcohol consumption fell and remained lower than previous years for the rest of the year.
Three factors, according to the experts, are most likely to be responsible: Even when on-trade venues reopened, they did so at a reduced capacity; some venues (e.g. nightclubs and live music venues) remained closed, and some people will have continued to avoid hospitality settings even when there were fewer restrictions due to fears of contracting Covid-19.
"Going forward it remains unclear what the long-term consequences will be of the changes in alcohol consumption in 2020. With hospitality premises back operating at closer to full capacity, it's likely that alcohol consumption in these venues will move closer to pre-pandemic levels, although they could potentially decline again in response to new variants if restrictions are reintroduced or people are afraid of indoor spaces," said Dr Iain Hardie, a lead author of the study from the University of Glasgow MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit.
-PTC News
