Pandemic Has Cut Into College Kids’ Drinking

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

There’s been a large drop in drinking among U.S. college students who went home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study finds.

It included more than 300 students who were surveyed about two months after pandemic-related campus closures in the spring.

The students were asked about their drinking habits and living arrangements before and after school shutdowns in the spring of 2020: living with peers before and after closure, living with parents before and after closure, or living with peers before closure but with parents after.

Among students who used alcohol, the number of days they drank per week fell from 3.1 to 2.7 for those who moved from living with peers to parents, but rose from 3 to 3.7 for those who remained living with peers, and from 2 to 3.3 for those who remained living with their parents.

The total number of drinks per week for students who moved home dropped from 13.9 to 8.5, remained about the same (10.6 vs. 11) among those who continued to live with peers and rose from 6.7 to 9.4 for those who continued living at home.

The maximum number of drinks in a day decreased from 5.4 to 2.9 among students who moved home, from 4.4 to 3.7 for those who remained with peers, and from 3.5 to 3.2 for those who remained at home, according to the study. It was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-12-16-pandemic-has-really-cut-into-college-kids-drinking-study-shows-2649428038.html