The Public Health Agency has published a new evidence review, delivered by the National Children’s Bureau, exploring the wide-ranging implications of Covid-19 restrictions for children and young people across Northern Ireland. The review synthesises evidence from over 100 systematic reviews and 220 primary studies, and highlights key themes including:

• Mental health and wellbeing
• Education, learning and development
• Relationships, loneliness and social isolation
• Physical health, activities and sleep
• Financial, wider family impacts and safeguarding
• Impacts on specific groups, including disabled children, young carers, and those facing socio-economic disadvantage

P.57-58 Alcohol Some young people reported using alcohol as a coping strategy during lockdown periods (Dewa et al., 2024). However, international reviews suggest that overall, more studies reported that levels of drinking fell during lockdown among young people (Botella-Juan et al., 2025; Layman et al., 2022). For example, among a sample of UK students (86% female), alcohol consumption fell significantly between October 2019 and April-May 2020 (Evans et al., 2021) and among a representative sample, the proportion of young people who had had an alcoholic drink in the previous seven days fell from 55.5% in 2020 to 43.3% in 2021 (Newlove-Delgado et al., 2021). However, these patterns might mask a more complex picture among individual young people: while 60% of 22-year-old alcohol drinkers in Ireland reported that they drank less during the pandemic, 17% reported that they were drinking more (Murray et al., 2021). Internationally, risk factors for increased binge drinking among young people during the pandemic included pandemic stressors (e.g., isolation, social disconnection and non-compliance with restrictions), psychosocial issues (e.g., depression, anxiety, boredom, and low resilience), prior substance use, and sociodemographic variables (e.g., low education, female gender, economic extremes, living arrangements, academic disengagement, and limited family support) (Merino-Casquero et al., 2025).

Other substances - As with alcohol, there seemed to be a general trend in international studies towards reduced use of substances including cannabis, tobacco and e-cigarettes/vapes during lockdown periods, with a more mixed picture in relation to other drugs and unspecified substances (Layman et al., 2022). In a clinical sample of young people referred to psychiatry following a crisis visit to the emergency department in Ireland, the proportion who said they had misused drugs fell significantly from 53% (8/15) in 2019 to 19% (9/47) in 2021 (McLoughlin et al., 2021). Declines may have been part of a longerterm trend in substance use, with the lockdown also interrupting availability, access and gatherings with peers (Layman et al., 2022). However, among young people who were using substances more regularly prior to the lockdown, the picture may look different. Among 200 young people who used cannabis regularly in the run-up to March 2020, their cannabis and alcohol use increased during lockdown, which may have been a strategy to cope with the monotony of lockdown, while their use of other drugs declined and there was no change in their use of cigarettes (Skumlien et al., 2021).