The impact of COVID-19 on alcohol consumption and policy measures to prevent alcohol abuse[1]

Online alcohol sales increased by 234% during the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and related government measures to limit mobility have affected drinking patterns and locations. While the road to recovery remains long and difficult, this crisis also increases the risk that people will abuse alcohol to cope with stress. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an increase in domestic violence, for which alcohol use is a risk factor.

Alcohol use harms health, causes illness and injury, weakens the immune response to COVID-19, and results in significant economic and social costs

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people significantly changed their drinking habits, shifting the places of consumption from bars and restaurants - to homes.

For many people, alcohol is part of their social life, which has been significantly disrupted by COVID-19. 

Overall, most people did not change how much they drank, but among those who did, a large proportion drank more. Based on preliminary data on state tax revenues, alcohol sales in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States are up 3-5% in 2020 compared with 2019. Alcohol sales in bars and restaurants fell sharply, which seriously affected this sector. Online sales increased to 234%.

Alcohol consumption causes severe damage to the economy and society. 

Over the next 30 years, and on average across OECD countries, diseases and injuries caused by more than one drink a day for women and 1.5 drinks a day for men (which corresponds to the low-risk thresholds specifically used for modeling) will result in a life expectancy 0.9 years shorter than the opposite case; they will also incur about 2.4% of total health care costs; GDP (due to reduced labor force participation and productivity) will be 1.6% lower than for no drinkers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people live, including their drinking habits. Often, the government's strict policy to contain the spread of the virus as a whole effectively keeps people at home. For example, 39% of workers in OECD countries have switched to remote work (OECD, 2020), and millions of children have switched to online education and home schooling. 

Free time was also affected, for example, by a sharp increase in the time spent on the Internet. 

Alcohol consumption habits have also changed: the amount, frequency and place of alcohol consumption. In particular, the latest data suggests that:

• People have increased the frequency of alcohol consumption, but the amount of consumption has not changed much. In the 11 countries for which data are available, 43% of people reported an increase in the frequency of alcohol consumption, compared with a quarter of adults who reduced the frequency of alcohol consumption. The probability of binge drinking — the habit of drinking more than 80% of a bottle of wine or 1.5 liters of beer at a time-has not changed for almost half of the population. About 29% of respondents reported that they drink less often, 23% said that they drink more often.

• The number of cases of domestic violence has increased. Alcohol consumption is a cause of injuries, including road accidents and violence, and is also a risk factor for intimate partner violence and child abuse, among other things. The Alcohol Abuse Prevention Report shows that drinking more than 1 drink per day for women and 1.5 servings of a drink per day for men (which meets the low-risk threshold) will cause 37 million injuries over the next 30 years in 52 countries. As for the cost of treatment, such alcohol consumption contributes to the appearance of about 4% of all expenses for the treatment of injuries.
• Shorter life expectancy. Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for chronic diseases such as alcohol dependence, cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and injuries. According to OECD estimates (before COVID‑19), the use of more than 1/1,5 servings of alcohol per day will serve the cause of about 1.1 billion new cases of alcohol dependence (88% of all cases), 37 million cases of injuries (4%), 5 million cases of cirrhosis of the liver (38%) and 10 million cases of cancer related to alcohol (4%), and one million cases of other diseases over the next 30 years in 52 countries. Alcohol-related illnesses and injuries lead to the fact that life expectancy is reduced by almost 1 year than it could be over the next 30 years, on average in the OECD and EU countries. 

For comparison, over the past 30 years, life expectancy in the OECD countries has increased by about 6.7 years (World Bank, 2020) . Alcohol consumption is only one of the factors determining the health of the population, but drinking less than 1 / 1.5 servings of a drink per day would provide about 13% of the total increase in life expectancy recorded over the same period of time in the past. The largest reduction in life expectancy is predicted in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Diseases and injuries caused by alcohol consumption above 1/1. 5 servings of alcohol per day require treatment costs of about 2.4% of total health care costs on average in OECD countries.

• Reduced employment and labor productivity. People with chronic diseases are more likely to remain unemployed or miss working days. They are also less productive at work than people with good health. Conclusions of the OECD on the prevention of alcohol abuse: according to the report, employment will decrease by 0.33% every year in the period 2020-2050 due to diseases and injuries caused by drinking more than 1 / 1.5 servings of a drink per day among the working-age population (aged 18-65 years) in all OECD countries.  There are significant regional differences in this effect. The labor markets in Central and Eastern Europe suffered the most: in Latvia, there was a reduction in employment to 0.67%. In addition, 0.11% of labor productivity is lost annually due to absence from work due to illness, and 0.24% is lost due to a decrease in labor productivity in the form of presence at work on average in OECD countries.

Investing in the protection of children and people who drink alcohol is especially important during a pandemic.

The PPPS policy package includes a comprehensive set of tools that will effectively and efficiently combat alcohol abuse. 

• Protecting young people from alcohol propaganda, especially through media such as television, the Internet and social networks. During the pandemic, children's screen time increased by 50%, including television and social networks, video on demand and online video (Axios, 2021).  The impact of alcohol advertising on children may contribute to the likelihood of trying alcohol for the first time (Jernigan et al., 2017). Only a few countries have strict legislation to protect children from alcohol advertising on the Internet in social networks (WHO, 2020).

• Strengthening primary health care for patients with alcohol consumption habits. It is estimated that less than 10% of patients with harmful drinking patterns receive support from medical services in Europe and the United States (Sugarman and Greenfield, 2021). If it is possible that the number of people with harmful patterns of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related disorders will increase after the pandemic, health services should be ready to address this problem.
• The fight against cheap alcohol, which is disproportionately consumed by alcohol-dependent people, including among young people, through the policy of minimum unit prices (CBM). The MUP has a double advantage: first, it specifically restricts the availability of cheap alcohol. Secondly, it may have a positive impact on bars and restaurants, which are among the sectors most affected by the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, given that the increase in revenues from the MUP remains in the industry.

Measures to combat harmful drinking always involve difficult trade-offs.

While alcohol industry revenues are affected by policies, whether in profitable or unprofitable ways, there are countermeasures to minimize additional costs to the industry. Comprehensive, well-designed policy packages that include mitigation approaches for the alcohol industry can provide the expected health benefits without a major negative impact on the economy.

For example, regulation or pricing policies cause adaptation costs, such as the cost of developing a new strategy or new products, but new products can create new revenues. 

In addition, the data show that the savings from reduced spending on alcoholic beverages as a result of the alcohol policy can be used for other complementary products. Similarly, data from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States show that the decline in employment in the alcohol industry can be partially or completely offset by an increase in employment in other sectors (OECD, 2021).

Measures to combat alcohol addiction will always involve complex trade-offs, for example, regarding their impact on the economy and the labor market, as well as on what type of consumers the policy is aimed at. For example, measures aimed at all consumers are effective, but they affect those who consume alcohol in low or moderate amounts, as well as those who consume alcohol in large quantities. On the other hand, activities aimed only at people who are dependent on alcohol consumption have a significant short-and medium-term impact on these people, but have less impact at the level of the population as a whole and, as a rule, have higher implementation costs.

[1]"https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/the-effect-of-covid-19-on-alcohol-consumption-and-policy-responses-to-prevent-harmful-alcohol-consumption-53890024/#section-d1e118