As we have learned over the past few months, pandemics are no fun. COVID-19 has disrupted our lives and created high levels of stress. There are many ways that people deal with stress, some productive and others not so much. New research published in the peer-reviewed journal Addictive Behaviors by Lindsey Rodriguez, Dana Litt and Sherry Stewart showed that during the pandemic, some people, mainly women, turned to alcohol to help them cope with the stress. This raises the question, is the COVID-19 pandemic harder on women?
Why the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Stressful
There are many indications that the COVID-19 pandemic is stressful, and there is growing concern about it leading to mental health problems. Research has shown that there is an increase in emotional distress especially among young people, and that the number of calls to mental health hot lines are skyrocketing. The pandemic is causing stress for several reasons.
- Fear of contracting the disease: COVID-19 is a serious disease with a significant risk of not only death, but lingering medical problems that can be life-changing. This fear is not only that you will get the disease, but that loved ones will as well.
- Economic hardship: Many people have lost income, jobs, and businesses that creates extreme financial stress.
- Uncertainty about the Future: Nothing produces more anxiety than uncertainty about the future. We do not know when the pandemic will end, what will happen with the economy, and for those who have lost jobs, when they will again be employed.
- Not knowing what to do: Every day we receive mixed messages in the media from various leaders about how best to handle the pandemic. Should we stay home or go out? Should we wear masks or not? Is the illness really that deadly, or has it been blown out of proportion? This is another aspect of uncertainty that fuels our stress.
- Social isolation: It is tough being stuck at home away from family and friends. Millions of employees were told to work from home, and for many it was the first time they experienced remote work. Being isolated from coworkers and supervisors was difficult.
Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Harder on Women?
Rodriquez and her team surveyed more than 750 Americans, half of them women, about their experiences with the pandemic. They asked them about how threatened they felt about the pandemic, about their mental distress, and about their alcohol drinking behavior. They found that men and women did not differ in how threatened they felt or about the effect of the pandemic on their mental distress. However, only women responded to mental distress due to the pandemic by increasing their drinking behavior. Women who were the most distressed by the pandemic reported drinking twice as much as women who were not distressed. Drinking behavior for men was unrelated to COVID-19 distress.
It is impossible to know from this study how many of these women were experiencing adverse effects from excessive drinking or other substance use and abuse. However, the authors note how there is growing concern that as the pandemic continues, increased alcohol consumption can become a public health concern. Likely, some people, especially women with existing alcohol and broader substance abuse problems might struggle to keep their drinking under control. So, is the COVID-19 pandemic harder on women? In terms of overall distress, probably not, but it is still a concern that when distressed, women are more likely than men to turn to alcohol to cope.
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