RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Exposure to health misinformation about COVID-19 and increased tobacco and alcohol use: a population-based survey in Hong Kong JF Tobacco Control JO Tob Control FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd SP 696 OP 699 DO 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-055960 VO 30 IS 6 A1 Tzu Tsun Luk A1 Shengzhi Zhao A1 Xue Weng A1 Janet Yuen-Ha Wong A1 Yongda Socrates Wu A1 Sai Yin Ho A1 Tai Hing Lam A1 Man Ping Wang YR 2021 UL http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/30/6/696.abstract AB Introduction Health information about COVID-19 has been circulating in social networking sites, including unproven claims that smoking and alcohol drinking could protect against COVID-19. We examined if exposure to such claims was associated with changes in tobacco and alcohol consumption.Methods We conducted a population-based, landline and mobile phone survey of 1501 randomly sampled adults aged 18 years or older (47.5% male) in Hong Kong in April 2020. Respondents reported if they had ever seen claims that ‘smoking/alcohol drinking can protect against COVID-19’ from popular social networking platforms. Current tobacco and alcohol users reported if they had increased or reduced their consumption since the outbreak. Prevalence data were weighted by sex, age and education of the general adult population.Results 19.0% (95% CI 16.8% to 21.4%) of all respondents reported having seen claims that ‘smoking/alcohol drinking can protect against COVID-19’ from social networking sites. Multinomial logistic regression showed that exposure to the claims was significantly associated with increased tobacco use (OR 2.37, 95% CI 1.08 to 5.20) in current tobacco users (N=280) and increased alcohol use (OR 4.16, 95% CI 2.00 to 8.67) in current drinkers (N=722), adjusting for sex, age, education level, alcohol/tobacco use status, home isolation, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and survey method.Conclusion Our results first showed that exposure to health misinformation that smoking/alcohol drinking can protect against COVID-19 was associated with self-reported increases in tobacco and alcohol consumption in Chinese during the pandemic.