Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Since the onset of COVID-19, alcohol-related harm has increased in regions such as the United States and the United Kingdom. We examined whether alcohol-related harm increased with the pandemic in Australia, and whether the impact varied across sex, age and type of alcohol diagnosis. METHODS: Monthly rates of alcohol-induced hospitalisations and deaths nationally from July 2016 until February 2020 were modelled in an autoregressive integrated moving average analysis, and the counterfactual trend was forecasted until April 2021. We estimated the overall excess in average monthly numbers of alcohol-induced hospitalisations and deaths by sex, age and diagnosis. RESULTS: We found excess monthly alcohol-induced hospitalisations overall (681 [95% prediction interval 481-872]), among males (437 [343-528]), females (208 [50-355]), 15- to 34-year-olds (144 [57-226]), 35- to 54-year-olds (331 [2-636]), for cardiovascular, digestive and endocrine diseases (164 [108-223]) and for neuropsychiatric conditions (483 [236-721]). Excess monthly alcohol-induced deaths were found overall (13 [4-21]), among males (10 [0-19]), females (4 [1-7]), 35- to 54-year-olds (8 [5-11]) and for cardiovascular, digestive and endocrine diseases (10 [2-18]) and poisonings (2 [0-4]). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Increased alcohol-induced hospitalisations and deaths across Australia indicate a need to continue to monitor the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and develop strategies to minimise further harm among those currently affected and in the event of future public health crises.