Another limitation is that we only included EA and AA adolescents in this study. Future research needs to examine whether the pattern of associations observed here are generalizable to other ethnic groups. Because our sample is highly enriched both for alcohol dependence and larger families, replication of our findings in community or nationally representative samples will be important. Further, we only examined the role of parental ADS on adolescent risky drinking and conduct problems. Since parental alcohol problems affect a range of offspring outcomes, future research is warranted to extend the current investigation to other adolescent outcomes such as internalizing problems. Finally, we did not consider the role of prenatal exposure to alcohol because relevant data was only available to a small subset of adolescents in our sample. Given that prenatal exposure to alcohol has implications for later development (e.g., Riley et al., 2011), future research is needed to examine whether or not the pattern of association between parental ADS, parenting, and adolescent outcomes may differ for prenatally alcohol exposed and non-exposed adolescents.
