Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 24, 2025

Breakfast Habits among Schoolchildren in the City of Uruguaiana, Brazil
Published on: July 29, 2020
Lifestyle changes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil: results from three consecutive cross-sectional web surveys
Marcelo Ribeiro-Alves1, Giovanna Lucieri Costa2, Jurema Corrêa da Mota3
1Laboratório de Pesquisa Clínica em DST-AIDS, Instituto Nacional de Infectologia Evandro Chagas (INI), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Objective:
The importance of a healthy lifestyle in preventing morbidity and mortality is well-established. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant lifestyle changes globally, but the extent of these changes in the Brazilian population remains unclear. The objective of this study was to evaluate changes in lifestyle among the Brazilian general population during the first year of the pandemic.
Design:
Three consecutive anonymous web surveys were carried out: survey 1 (S1)-April 2020, S2-August 2020 and S3-January 2021.
Setting:
Brazil.
Participants:
The study included 19 257 (S1), 1590 (S2) and 859 (S3) participants from the general population, who were ≥18 years, of both sexes, with access to the internet, self-reporting living in Brazil and who agreed to participate after reading the informed consent.
Primary Outcome:
Lifestyle changes were assessed using the Short Multidimensional Instrument for Lifestyle Evaluation-Confinement (SMILE-C). The SMILE-C assesses lifestyle across multiple domains including diet, substance use, physical activity, stress management, restorative sleep, social support and environmental exposures. We used a combination of bootstrapping and linear fixed-effect modelling to estimate pairwise mean differences of SMILE-C scores overall and by domain between surveys.
Results:
In all the surveys, participants were mostly women and with a high education level. Mean SMILE-C scores were 186.4 (S1), 187.4 (S2) and 190.5 (S3), indicating a better lifestyle in S3 as compared with S1. The pairwise mean differences of the overall SMILE-C scores were statistically significant (p<0.001). We also observed a better lifestyle over time in all domains except for diet and social support.
Conclusions:
Our findings indicate that individuals from a large middle-income country, such as Brazil, struggled to restore diet and social relationships after 1 year of the pandemic. These findings have implications for monitoring the long-term consequences of the pandemic, as well as future pandemics.
More Related Videos
15:00Setup of Consumer Wearable Devices for Exposure and Health Monitoring in Population Studies
Published on: February 3, 2023
09:33Visualizing Field Data Collection Procedures of Exposure and Biomarker Assessments for the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network Trial in India
Published on: December 23, 2022
Related Concept Videos
Lifestyle Factors and Health
Benefits of Physical Activity
Physical activity, whether through structured exercise or casual activities like walking, biking, or dancing, is a cornerstone of a...
Introduction to Stress and Lifestyle
Cross-Sectional Research
Study Designs in Epidemiology
Observational studies are those where the researcher does not intervene but rather observes natural variations. They include cross-sectional, cohort, and...
Factors Affecting Illness
For instance, risk factors are connected to illness,...
Bias in Epidemiological Studies