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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Substance Use Disorders and Behavioral Addictions
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1415178

Prevalence and Association between Alcohol, Tobacco, and COVID-19: A Study from a Tribal Predominant District in Eastern India

Provisionally accepted
Venkata Lakshmi Narasimha Venkata Lakshmi Narasimha 1Santanu Nath Santanu Nath 2*Benazir Alam Benazir Alam 2Bipasa Kumari Bipasa Kumari 2Pooja Kumari Pooja Kumari 2Shalini Kumari Shalini Kumari 2Jagdish Kaur Jagdish Kaur 3Saurabh Varshney Saurabh Varshney 2
  • 1 National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India
  • 2 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Deoghar, Deoghar, India
  • 3 World Health Organization-South-East Asia Regional Office, New Delhi, India

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Alcohol and tobacco use has been proposed to significantly affect COVID-19 outcomes. The study aimed to estimate the prevalence of alcohol and tobacco use among COVID-19-positive patients and compare it with the general population prevalence rates. It also aimed to assess and determine the association between the severity of COVID-19 illness and the complications with alcohol and tobacco use. Method: For this, a cross-sectional, retrospective, telephone-based study was conducted using a structured questionnaire among COVID-19 diagnosed patients in the district of Deoghar of the Indian state of Jharkhand. A multinomial logistic regression is done to determine the association. Results: Among 1425 patients interviewed, tobacco and alcohol were used by 22.31% and 9.96%, significantly more than the prevalence of tobacco (Z= 4.9485, p <0.00001) and alcohol use (Z= 7.118, p<0.00001), respectively, in the district (tobacco-11.7% and alcohol-4.8%). In a regression model, patients with co-morbidity had higher odds of severe (3.34 (1.99-5.62)) and moderate (2.95 (1.97-4.41)) COVID-19. Young (0.12 (0.04-0.38)) and middle-aged individuals (0.23 (0.13-0.4)), people below the poverty line 0.28 (0.11-0.69) are at lower odds of severe )), alcohol users (1.53 (1.03-2.28)), incomplete vaccination (3.24 (1.49-7.01)), and patients with comorbidity (3.6 (2.79-4.68)) were found to have higher odds of post-COVID-19 complications. Discussion: People with COVID-19 in our study population had significantly higher tobacco and alcohol use compared to the general population. Tobacco and alcohol use significantly increases the risk of post-COVID-19 complications. The study highlights the need for addiction treatment services to prevent complications during future pandemics.

    Keywords: Tobacco, alcohol, COVID-19, India, Addiction, pandemic

    Received: 16 Apr 2024; Accepted: 08 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Narasimha, Nath, Alam, Kumari, Kumari, Kumari, Kaur and Varshney. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Santanu Nath, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Deoghar, Deoghar, India

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