Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol use and smoking habits

ABSTRACT

Background

It is very important to monitor changes in substance use during the pandemic period, as individuals dealing with substance use may be at greater risk for COVID-19, and stress factors and changes resulting from the pandemic may cause alterations in substance use models.

Method

In this review, the existing literature on how COVID-19 affected people’s alcohol consumption, smoking, and vaping use in different societies was evaluated. Articles that are relevant to the subject were searched using PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar and reviewed.

Results

It was observed that due to COVID-19, there may be no alterations in these substance use types or it may result in a decrease of consumption of substances or a quit attempt due to health concerns about COVID-19 or it may cause an increase in the alcohol, or cigarette consumption.

Conclusions

With this review we hope to present detailed information on the impact of the pandemic on alcohol consumption, and cigarette or e-cigarette use from various studies conducted in different societies all around the world and highlight the importance and necessity of new studies on this subject.

KEYWORDS:

• Substance-use
• smoking
• alcohol
• COVID-19

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.