Associations Between Alcohol Delivery Policy and Pandemic Alcohol Use Among Sexual and Gender Minority Youth and Young Adults.

Introduction: In an effort to promote social distancing as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many jurisdictions altered policies surrounding alcohol delivery, newly allowing both on-premises (i.e., from restaurants) and off-premises (i.e., from liquor stores) to deliver alcohol directly to consumers in many places. However, it is unknown how these changing delivery policies impact alcohol use among youth and young adults (YYA), especially sexual and gender minority youth and young adults (SGMY) population.

Methods: Using alcohol use data from a national, cross-sectional study of youth and young adults with ages 14-24 (n = 736) between February 2021 and March 2022 and policy data from the Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), we used multinomial logistic regression to test associations between current drinking and binge drinking and the presence of different alcohol delivery policies, as well as to measure disparities between different subpopulations.

Results: Results indicate that off-premises delivery policy was associated with binge drinking as well as current light alcohol use. However, on-premises delivery policy was associated with lower rates of binge drinking. Younger populations and transgender populations reported lower levels of alcohol use.

Conclusions: Findings indicate that, as many of these policy changes become permanent, novel prevention strategies may be needed to prevent harmful alcohol use, especially in states that allow off-premises alcohol delivery.

Policy implications: Results of the present study support the development of future research scrutinizing the long-term effects of increased alcohol accessibility among YYA and increased binge drinking among YYA as a tertiary consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.