IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v325y2023ics0277953623002472.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol and tobacco consumption: Evidence from Peru

Author

Listed:
  • Sara, Raisa

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced dramatic adversities for public health around the world, especially in low and middle-income countries. While research has shown the pandemic to have direct effects on a variety of major economic and health crises, its impact on health-related behaviors is not clear. In this paper, I examine how exposure to the pandemic affects alcohol use and smoking in Peru, which experienced one of the highest COVID-related death rates albeit implementing one of the strictest lockdown policies in the world. I find that post pandemic consumption of alcohol and smoking in the last 30 days decreases by 41.3% and 44.1% respectively when compared to pre-pandemic rates. I also conclude that the intensity of engaging in these behaviors change such that the frequency of consuming alcohol in the last 30 days, binge drinking and the probability of smoking daily falls. While drinking behavior returns to pre-pandemic levels, the negative effect on smoking weakens but remains for almost two years preceding the pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara, Raisa, 2023. "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol and tobacco consumption: Evidence from Peru," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:325:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623002472
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115890
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623002472
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115890?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick, Megan E. & Terry-McElrath, Yvonne M. & Miech, Richard A. & Keyes, Katherine M. & Jager, Justin & Schulenberg, John E., 2022. "Alcohol use and the COVID-19 pandemic: Historical trends in drinking, contexts, and reasons for use among U.S. adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    2. Cai, Weicheng & Zhou, Yi, 2022. "Men smoke less under the COVID-19 closure policies: The role of altruism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 306(C).
    3. Paul J. Gertler & Sebastian Martinez & Patrick Premand & Laura B. Rawlings & Christel M. J. Vermeersch, 2016. "Impact Evaluation in Practice, Second Edition," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 25030.
    4. Michael T. French & Karoline Mortensen & Andrew R. Timming, 2022. "Changes in self-reported health, alcohol consumption, and sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 219-225, February.
    5. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    6. Aaron Chalfin & Shooshan Danagoulian & Monica Deza, 2021. "COVID-19 Has Strengthened the Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption and Domestic Violence," NBER Working Papers 28523, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Agüero, Jorge M., 2021. "COVID-19 and the rise of intimate partner violence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    8. Cawley, John & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2011. "The Economics of Risky Health Behaviors," Handbook of Health Economics, in: Mark V. Pauly & Thomas G. Mcguire & Pedro P. Barros (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 95-199, Elsevier.
    9. Christopher Carpenter & Carlos Dobkin, 2009. "The Effect of Alcohol Consumption on Mortality: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from the Minimum Drinking Age," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 164-182, January.
    10. Minoru Higa & Carlos Ospino & Fernando Aragon, 2023. "The persistent effects of COVID-19 on labour outcomes: evidence from Peru," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(8), pages 1065-1076, May.
    11. Hernandez-Vasquez, Akram, 2016. "Burden of smoking-related disease and potential impact of cigarette price increase in Peru," MPRA Paper 75677, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Amedeo Minichino & Francesco Saverio Bersani & Wanda Katharina Calò & Francesco Spagnoli & Marta Francesconi & Roberto Vicinanza & Roberto Delle Chiaie & Massimo Biondi, 2013. "Smoking Behaviour and Mental Health Disorders—Mutual Influences and Implications for Therapy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-22, October.
    13. Kristen M. Glenister & Kaye Ervin & Tegan Podubinski, 2021. "Detrimental Health Behaviour Changes among Females Living in Rural Areas during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-15, January.
    14. Boruchowicz, Cynthia & Parker, Susan W. & Robbins, Lindsay, 2022. "Time use of youth during a pandemic: Evidence from Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    15. Christopher Carpenter & Carlos Dobkin, 2011. "The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Public Health," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(2), pages 133-156, Spring.
    16. Sun Yeop Lee & Sun Kim & Woong-Han Kim & Jongho Heo, 2022. "Employment, Economic, and Sociodemographic Factors Associated with Changes in Smoking and Drinking Behaviors during the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-14, February.
    17. Akram Hernández-Vásquez & Horacio Chacón-Torrico & Rodrigo Vargas-Fernández & Leandro Nicolás Grendas & Guido Bendezu-Quispe, 2022. "Gender Differences in the Factors Associated with Alcohol Binge Drinking: A Population-Based Analysis in a Latin American Country," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-14, April.
    18. Wu, Daphne C. & Shannon, Geordan & Reynales-Shigematsu, Luz Myriam & Saenz de Miera, Belen & Llorente, Blanca & Jha, Prabhat, 2021. "Implications of household tobacco and alcohol use on child health and women's welfare in six low and middle-income countries: An analysis from a gender perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sara, Raisa & Radoias, Vlad & Kim, Younoh, 2024. "Hypertension effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns: Evidence from a repeated cross-sectional survey in Peru," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sara, Raisa & Radoias, Vlad & Kim, Younoh, 2024. "Hypertension effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns: Evidence from a repeated cross-sectional survey in Peru," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    2. Vijetha Koppa, 2018. "The Effect of Alcohol Access on Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Evidence From the Minimum Legal Drinking Age," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 4(2), pages 164-184, Spring.
    3. Bharat Barik, 2024. "Health Shocks, Risk Aversion, and Consumption Choices: Evidence from Household Intoxicant Spending in India During COVID-19," IIMA Working Papers WP 2024-01-02, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    4. Kai Barron & Charles D. H. Parry & Debbie Bradshaw & Rob Dorrington & Pam Groenewald & Ria Laubscher & Richard Matzopoulos, 2024. "Alcohol, Violence, and Injury-Induced Mortality: Evidence from a Modern-Day Prohibition," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(4), pages 938-955, July.
    5. Marco Francesconi & Jonathan James, 2022. "Alcohol Price Floors and Externalities: The Case of Fatal Road Crashes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 1118-1156, September.
    6. Jeff DeSimone & Daniel Grossman & Nicolas Ziebarth, 2023. "Regression Discontinuity Evidence on the Effectiveness of the Minimum Legal E-cigarette Purchasing Age," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(3), pages 461-485.
    7. Ceren Ertan Yörük & Barış Yörük, 2015. "Alcohol consumption and risky sexual behavior among young adults: evidence from minimum legal drinking age laws," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 133-157, January.
    8. Jason M. Lindo & Peter Siminski & Oleg Yerokhin, 2016. "Breaking The Link Between Legal Access To Alcohol And Motor Vehicle Accidents: Evidence From New South Wales," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(7), pages 908-928, July.
    9. Zhorayev, Olzhas, 2020. "Determinants of Trust in Police: A Cross-National Analysis," MPRA Paper 109068, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Johanna Catherine Maclean & Brendan Saloner, 2018. "Substance Use Treatment Provider Behavior and Healthcare Reform: Evidence from Massachusetts," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 76-101, January.
    11. Marigee Bacolod & Jesse M. Cunha & Yu‐Chu Shen, 2020. "When young soldiers drink: The impact of legal access to alcohol among U.S. Army soldiers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(2), pages 576-607, October.
    12. Cook, Philip J. & Durrance, Christine Piette, 2013. "The virtuous tax: Lifesaving and crime-prevention effects of the 1991 federal alcohol-tax increase," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 261-267.
    13. Ertan Yörük, Ceren & Yörük, Barış K., 2012. "The impact of drinking on psychological well-being: Evidence from minimum drinking age laws in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(10), pages 1844-1854.
    14. Alexander S. Skorobogatov, 2021. "The effect of alcohol sales restrictions on alcohol poisoning mortality: Evidence from Russia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1417-1442, June.
    15. Nicolai Brachowicz & Judit Vall Castello, 2019. "Is changing the minimum legal drinking age an effective policy tool?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(12), pages 1483-1490, December.
    16. Pilar Beneito & Inés Rosell, 2018. "Gender responses to competitive pressure in college: a regression discontinuity design," Discussion Papers in Economic Behaviour 0518, University of Valencia, ERI-CES.
    17. Bernardo, Valeria & Fageda, Xavier, 2019. "Globalization, long-haul flights and inter-city connections," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Aaron Chalfin & Shooshan Danagoulian & Monica Deza, 2021. "COVID-19 Has Strengthened the Relationship Between Alcohol Consumption and Domestic Violence," NBER Working Papers 28523, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Saxena, Vibhor & Bindal, Ishaan & LeMay-Boucher, Philippe, 2020. "Social groups and credit shocks: Evidence of inequalities in consumption smoothing," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 311-326.
    20. Calzada, Joan & Fageda, Xavier & Safronov, Roman, 2022. "How do global airline alliances affect flight frequency? Evidence from Russia," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Pandemic; Peru; Alcohol; Tobacco; Smoking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:325:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623002472. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.