The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) collected data on the percent of weekly substance and alcohol use-related emergency department visits to total emergency department visits pre-Covid-19, after the White House declared a national emergency, during stay-at-home orders, and after the lifting of restrictions. The headline is that alcohol and substance abuse-related emergency department visits increased significantly after Covid was declared a national emergency and stay-at-home orders were in place.

The picture of how Covid shaped substance abuse-related emergency department visits between January to August 2020 looks like this:

The average percent of weekly substance use-related emergency department visits, pre-covid (blue bars in the above graph), is 3.82%. After the White House declared a national emergency (purple bars in the above graph) and through the stay-at-home restrictions (yellow bars in the above graph), the percent of weekly substance use-related emergency department visits grew to an average of 5.1%. After running a t-test to see if the difference between pre-covid substance abuse and substance abuse during the period of the national emergency and stay-at-home restrictions was significant, I found the increase in substance abuse, post-Covid, to be extremely significant. The magnitude of the difference is approximately 1.3%

After lifting the restrictions on stay-at-home orders, the percentage of weekly substance abuse emergency department visits dropped. During the period when stay-at-home restrictions were lifted, the average percent of substance abuse-related emergency department visits dropped to approximately 4.6%. This average is still higher than the pre-Covid period, but is lower than the period of national emergency and stay-at-home restrictions.

Zeroing in on the percentage of weekly alcohol abuse-related emergency department visits, a similar story appears. The distribution of alcohol abuse-related visits across the periods–pre-Covid, national emergency and stay-at-home orders, and the lifting of restrictions between January to August 2020 looks like this:

The average percentage of weekly alcohol use-related emergency department visits during the pre-Covid phase (blue bars in the chart above) is 2.78%. The average during the national emergency and stay-at-home order phase (purple and yellow bars) is 3.7%. The difference is statistically significant and the magnitude is approximately 1%. After the lifting of restrictions, the average percent of alcohol use-related emergency department visits drops to 3.4%.

The takeaway is that the response to Covid has increased substance and alcohol abuse. The reasons, however, are unclear. It could be that isolation and stress related to the Covid response has posed a mental health threat. This post documents that one of the inadvertent side-effects of the Covid response is increased substance and alcohol abuse.