Dr Iain Hardie talks to Addiction Audio about his research into alcohol use changes during lockdown. His research is the first to report longitudinal data on changes in drinking quantities and characteristics. Dr Hardie talks about using an interrupted time series analysis to identify the impact of the pandemic on drinking habits.
Iain discusses how Scotland and England differ in the numbers of people who drink alone and talks about the potential long-term consequences resulting from changes in drinking patters whereby more people currently drink at home and fewer go out to pubs and bars.
“A lot of [drinking] occasions in general that start earlier in the day are quite often people meeting up for long drinking occasions or big social occasions that last the whole day, whereas when lockdowns were in place those occasions weren’t possible so people were drinking later on in the day”
The impact of changes in COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on alcohol consumption and drinking occasion characteristics in Scotland and England in 2020: an interrupted time-series analysis by Iain hardie and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2022)
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