There were limitations of the study. We did not examine the role of genetic factors. The high prevalence of father AUD history (81.4%) in the cohort may have contributed to the nonsignificant association between parent AUD and parent SA in analyses of fathers but not mothers where there was a more optimal distribution of AUD history (44.6% of mothers) for detecting associations. The limited number of suicide attempts over follow-up among youth warrant cautious interpretation of nonsignificant results. For example we did not identify a statistically significant relationship between parent- and offspring suicidal behavior, an association shown in prior studies (Kim, Seguin, Therrien et al., 2005; Lieb, Bronisch, Hofler et al., 2005; Melhem, Brent, Ziegler et al., 2007). The limited number of suicide attempters also ruled out more detailed analyses of sex differences, for example through separate analyses of male- and female youth. Although a limitation, all of the hypothesized paths to youth suicide attempts tested in our conceptual model were statistically significant with the lone exception of the path from parent SA to offspring SA (see figure 1). Therefore,
