Changes in Alcohol Consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic—Small Change in Total Consumption, but Increase in Proportion of Heavy Drinkers

Ingeborg Rossow, Elin K. Bye, Inger Synnøve Moan, Carolin Kilian and Jørgen G. Bramness
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Ingeborg Rossow: Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 0213 Oslo, Norway
Elin K. Bye: Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 0213 Oslo, Norway
Inger Synnøve Moan: Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 0213 Oslo, Norway
Carolin Kilian: Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Jørgen G. Bramness: Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 0213 Oslo, Norway

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-11

Abstract: Little is known about possible changes in alcohol consumption distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimated how individual changes in alcohol consumption during the pandemic translated into changes in: (i) mean consumption; (ii) dispersion of consumption distribution; and (iii) prevalence of heavy drinkers. We employed data from two independent web-surveys of Norwegian adults collected between April and July 2020 and limited to those reporting past year alcohol consumption ( N 1 = 15,267, N 2 = 1195). Self-reports of changes in drinking behavior were quantified, assuming change being relative to baseline consumption level. During the pandemic, we found a small increase (Survey 1) or no change (Survey 2) in estimated mean alcohol consumption (which parallels to total consumption). However, in both surveys, the dispersion of the distribution increased significantly ( p < 0.001). For most respondents, an average modest decline in consumption was found. However, the small fraction with the highest baseline consumption increased their consumption substantially, and in effect, the proportion of heavy drinkers increased markedly ( p < 0.001). In conclusion, quantifications of reported changes in alcohol consumption during the pandemic suggest that the upper 5 to 10% of the drinkers increased their consumption and hence the prevalence of heavy drinkers increased, despite little or no change in total alcohol consumption.

Keywords: alcohol use; changes; COVID-19; Norway; heavy drinkers; distribution of consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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