Nearly half of older adults with chronic conditions reported they engaged in hazardous drinking during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study.
Researchers from Northwestern University conducted telephone surveys of older adults age 60 and older from a Chicago-based cohort to assess their alcohol usage and hazardous drinking at different times throughout the pandemic. The study appeared July 5 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The study found 44.9% of older adults with chronic conditions reported hazardous drinking near the beginning of the pandemic in May 2020. The prevalence of hazardous drinking declined to 23.1% by late summer 2020 and continued to slowly decline to 19.4% by September-December 2021.
“Among a cohort of older adults with chronic conditions, almost half engaged in hazardous drinking in early summer of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the authors wrote. “While prevalence fell, these rates reinforce the need for alcohol screening and intervention in clinical settings among this population.”
Hazardous drinking is defined as drinking in a way that puts one at risk of physical or psychological harm. During the different survey waves, participants were asked three questions about their current alcohol use: “how often do you have a drink containing alcohol?,” “how many standard drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day?,” and “how often do you have six or more drinks on one occasion?” Women with scores of three or higher and men with scores of four or higher were considered to engage in hazardous drinking.
The researchers noted that alcohol use can be particularly detrimental to the health of older adults, and can also contribute to many of the chronic conditions prevalent among this age group, such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and dementia.
“The considerable rates of hazardous drinking seen in both the peak and troughs of the pandemic in this population, which is at higher risk of alcohol-related adverse outcomes due to older age and chronic condition burden, speaks to the need for better identification and treatment of hazardous drinking in healthcare settings, regularly and in exceptional circumstances,” authors concluded.
