Effect of Regional COVID-19 Lockdowns on Alcohol Use and Smoking in Two Chilean University Communities: A Difference-In-Difference Analysis.

INTRODUCTION

Effects of lockdowns on alcohol use and smoking remain unclear. By exploiting the variation in regional COVID-19 lockdowns in two Chilean regions, we examined their effect on alcohol use and smoking in two university communities.

METHODS

We conducted a quasi-experimental study in university communities in two Chilean regions, Coquimbo and Araucanía. Participants were a longitudinal cohort (n = 896) assessed seven times from July 2020 ( t 1 ) to April 2021 ( t 7 ). Outcomes were weekly grams of alcohol use, heavy episodic drinking (HED) and cigarettes smoked per day.

RESULTS

Lockdown between t 1 and t 3 was associated with an increase of 15.6 g of alcohol used per week (95% confidence interval 1.8; 29.3) and an increase of 0.3 daily cigarettes smoked (95% confidence interval 0.003; 0.5) at t 3 (September 2020), compared to the absence of lockdown. When lockdown reversed at t 5 , we found weak evidence of a reduction in alcohol use and smoking in the region under lockdown. We did not observe changes in HED during the study period.

DISCUSSION AND

CONCLUSIONS

COVID-19 lockdown appears to result in an initial relative increase in weekly volume of alcohol use and cigarette smoking compared to a region affected by the COVID-19 pandemic but without lockdown. We did not find evidence of changes in HED.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT05069090.