Interestingly, the interaction results seen in relation to high-risk drinking by women did not hold for men. Further, alcohol availability was not associated with high-risk drinking by men. Instead, for male drinkers the FH main effect was associated with high-risk drinking, with a pattern of increasing risk for greater FH density. Compared with the negative FH group, odds of high-risk drinking risk increased 50% for men with high-density FH, and this was independent of their social environment. By contrast, men’s odds of dependence increased as a function of both FH and alcohol availability. While an effect of FH on alcohol dependence is congruent with other studies (Dawson et al., 1992, Hill et al., 1994, Kendler et al., 2018), and previous work in other countries suggests alcohol availability may be more strongly associated with alcohol dependence among men than among women (Karriker-Jaffe, Ohlsson, Kendler, Cook, & Sundquist, 2018), the interactions suggest the local alcohol environment may play an especially important role in increasing risk for dependence for men and Black drinkers from high-risk families.
