It’s now four years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research from the Fenland COVID-19 study and the main Fenland Study is helping us discover more about the impact of the pandemic and its long term effects on health behaviours.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed clear inequalities in the UK, with people with existing health conditions and living in the poorest areas of the country more likely to die from COVID-19 than the wealthiest. Furthermore, the pandemic and related restrictions also had an impact on everyday life including how active people were, their diets, alcohol consumption, sleep and smoking.

Using data from the Fenland Study and the Fenland COVID-19 Study, researchers were able to compare measures of these behaviours taken on two occasions in the years before the pandemic (2005-2020) with the same measures taken during the pandemic on three occasions (2020-2021).

These findings published in the journal Public Health in October 2022, showed changes in diet, physical activity and sleep patterns during the pandemic:

• study participants slept around 3% more during the pandemic than before it. That’s nearly 15 minutes if you sleep around eight hours a night.
• because we stayed home more, people did nearly a fifth less physical activity.
• participants ate around 12% fewer fruits and vegetables.

Diet and physical activity decreases were much larger among participants living in poorer areas of Cambridgeshire compared to those living in more affluent areas. And these reductions were also greater for women compared to men.

Differences by age were also noticeable, with those over 60 years old having greater decreases in home-, leisure- and work-based physical activity compared to younger age groups.

This analysis shows that the pandemic widened inequalities in health behaviours, and supports the need for strategies to improve diet and physical activity equitably in the UK population.

If these behaviour changes persist, this could have a considerable impact on widening inequalities, with those in the poorest areas more vulnerable to worse longer-term health as a result.

So, where next?

The latest phase of the Fenland study – Fenland 3 – is now underway. Fenland 3 is giving us the chance to see whether or not people’s behaviours have gone back to pre-pandemics levels, or even if they might have got worse. What we discover will help us find ways to support people from all walks of life to improve their health and wellbeing.

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Read more

• Braithwaite VS, Sharp SJ, Koulman A, Wareham NJ, Rennie KL. An investigation of factors affecting changes in health behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic in a UK population-based cohort study, Public Health, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2022.08.005