Americans Are Drinking Less Since the Pandemic Began, But One Age Group Is Bucking the Trend, New Study Finds

Americans are drinking less for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, according to a new study, though overall alcohol consumption levels remain higher than they were before the pandemic, with one specific age group continuing to move in the opposite direction of the broader national trend.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 114,000 U.S. adults collected through the National Health Interview Survey and found that any reported alcohol use declined by almost 2% between 2022 and 2024, while heavy drinking fell by more than 8% over the same period. The findings were published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The decline was not evenly distributed across age groups. Gen Z adults recorded the largest overall drop in any alcohol consumption, with a decline of roughly 5% during the study period, while millennials saw a steeper 17% drop specifically in heavy drinking rates over the same two years.

Not every generation followed that downward pattern. Americans between the ages of 50 and 64 continued drinking at levels higher than before the pandemic, according to the study. That age group's overall alcohol consumption increased by nearly 4%, while heavy drinking within the group rose by 36% between 2018 and 2024, a sharp divergence from the declines observed among younger adults.

Brian Lee, a hepatologist and liver transplant specialist at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California who served as the study's principal investigator, said the pattern among older adults carries particular medical significance given that age group's heightened vulnerability to alcohol-related health problems. "We're seeing the increases in exactly the age group that we're most worried about in terms of health and organ damage," Lee said, pointing to the elevated risk that population faces for conditions including cirrhosis and alcohol-related cancers.

The study's findings follow earlier research documenting a broader surge in both alcohol consumption and alcohol-related deaths during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, a period during which many Americans reported increased stress and social isolation tied to lockdowns, economic uncertainty and disruptions to daily routines. Against that backdrop, the new data suggests younger adults have largely returned to more typical drinking patterns in the years since, while the pattern among adults in their 50s and early 60s has continued moving in the opposite direction.

Lee offered a possible explanation for that generational divide, framing the pandemic-era increase in drinking among younger adults as a temporary behavioral shift rather than a lasting change. "It looks like for younger people, this became a temporary habit, and it kind of bounced back to normal," Lee said. He acknowledged, however, that the persistence of elevated drinking among older adults remains less well understood. "But for older people, the question is why that habit has continued," he said.

The study's use of the National Health Interview Survey, a large, nationally representative federal data source, gives the findings a broad evidentiary base spanning tens of thousands of adults across the studied age ranges, lending weight to the generational differences the research identified even as the underlying causes behind the diverging trends remain a subject for further investigation.

Heavy drinking, as typically defined in alcohol-related public health research, generally refers to consumption patterns that substantially exceed recommended limits, a threshold associated with significantly elevated risk for a range of serious health conditions, including liver disease, certain cancers, cardiovascular problems and other chronic illnesses. The specific concern Lee raised about the 50-to-64 age group reflects established medical understanding that cumulative alcohol exposure over a longer lifespan, combined with age-related physiological changes, tends to compound health risks in ways that differ from the more acute risks associated with heavy drinking earlier in adulthood.

The broader national decline in alcohol consumption identified in the study aligns with other recent public health trends, including growing interest among younger adults in reduced-alcohol or alcohol-free social activities and products, alongside increased public attention to the long-term health risks associated with regular drinking. Even so, the study's authors emphasized that overall consumption levels nationally remain above where they stood before the pandemic began, indicating the recent decline represents only a partial reversal of the pandemic-era surge rather than a full return to pre-pandemic baselines.

With the research now published and drawing attention from health researchers and the public alike, the findings are likely to inform further study into why older Americans have continued drinking at elevated levels even as younger generations have largely scaled back, a question Lee and his fellow researchers have flagged as an important area for continued investigation given the specific health risks facing that age group.