The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the regulations to control the spread of the virus, represent a “natural experiment”, as they abruptly affected a vast majority of the population world-wide (Bierman et al., 2021), who was suddenly exposed to unprecedented restrictions (i.e. lockdown) and fear of viral infection. Although its consequences in terms of impact on health (behaviours) are still to be fully grasped, there is some evidence that almost two years of lockdown -defined as all preventive measures implemented to control the spread of the virus- had undesirable effects on individuals, such as increased feelings of loneliness, stress and mental health issues (Chandola et al., 2020, Czeisler et al., 2021, Grace, 2021). Moreover, there is evidence showing changes in health behaviours, such as alcohol consumption (Knell et al., 2020, Roberts et al., 2021).
