Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused an overwhelming healthcare, economic, social, and psychological impact on the world during 2020 and first part of 2021. Certain populations, especially those with Substance Use Disorders (SUD), were particularly vulnerable to contract the virus and also likely to suffer from a greater psychosocial and psychological burden. COVID-19 and addiction are two conditions on the verge of a collision, potentially causing a major public health threat. There is surge of addictive behaviors (both new and relapse), including use of alcohol, nicotine, and recreational drugs. This presentation will present the bi-directional relationship between COVID-19 and SUD by leveraging descriptive summaries, advanced analytics, and machine learning approaches. The data sources included healthcare claims dataset as well as state level alcohol consumption to help in investigating the bi-directional relationship between the two conditions. Results suggest that alcohol and nicotine use increased during the pandemic and that the profile of SUD patients included diagnoses and symptoms of COVID-19, depression and anxiety, as well as hypertensive conditions.

Ewa J. Kleczyk, PhD is an analytics leader with a proven record for establishing high performing analytics teams and delivering innovative analytics solutions to the healthcare industry. Currently, Dr. Kleczyk is a Vice President, leading the Advanced & Custom Analytics group at Symphony Health, ICON, plc. Her experience spans across data science and advanced analytics, health economics, outcomes research, digital & media analytics, as well as forecasting & promotional impact measurement. Dr. Kleczyk is also a highly sought-after conference speaker with experience speaking at leading industry conferences, including Pharmaceutical Marketing Sciences Association, Intellus, DTC Perspectives, CDM Media, Pharmaceutics & Novel Drug Delivery Systems, and Conference for Business and Economics at the Harvard University, etc. She also has published in multiple academic & industry journals and is a board member of several peer-reviewed publications, including the Pharmaceutical Marketing Sciences Association Journal. Dr. Kleczyk has been an active advocate of mentoring future women leaders of the pharmaceutical industry for which she has been recognized with multiple leadership awards, including HBA’s ‘Rising Star’ & ‘Luminary’ recognitions. Finally, together with her husband, James Strout, Dr. Kleczyk is a Board Member on the Community Cancer Council for the Northern Light Health Network that provides advocacy for cancer patients, while also driving local community’s initiatives in ensuring an increased access to diagnostic and treatment resources. Dr. Kleczyk earned her PhD in Economics from Virginia Tech and has been an affiliated graduate faculty in the School of Economics at the University of Maine.