In the current study, we tested whether the time-varying, proximal and distal effects of parents’ alcohol-related symptoms predicted both who is at risk for externalizing symptoms (i.e., children of alcoholic parents and/or children with greater overall exposure to parents’ alcohol-related symptoms) and when this risk occurs (i.e., at the same time as parents’ alcohol-related symptoms). Strengths of our approach included the use of integrative data analysis to simultaneously test this question in two, prospective high risk studies of COAs and matched controls; direct ascertainment of parents’ alcohol-related symptoms; and the inclusion of multiple reporters of children’s externalizing symptoms. Overall, we found consistent and large distal effects of parent alcoholism confirming previous findings that COAs have greater risk for externalizing symptoms than do non-COAs, even though the initial diagnosis of parent alcoholism predates the timing of the children’s symptoms. In addition, we found proximal effects indicating an additional risk for externalizing symptoms (above and beyond that attributed to distal effects) for children whose parents had greater alcohol-related symptoms during the study period when externalizing symptoms were assessed. Notably, we also found
