Strikingly, when the hazardous use criterion is dropped from the AUD scoring algorithms, differences in lifetime rates of AUDs between NLAES (15.15%) and NESARC (18.84%) are substantially reduced. Moreover, as opposed to previous research documenting increases in past-12 month rates of alcohol abuse (Grant et al., 2004), alcohol abuse appears to decrease slightly between 1992 and 2002 when hazardous use is eliminated from the abuse criteria. Notably, despite eliminating the hazardous use criterion, lifetime rates of alcohol abuse are still significantly higher in NESARC (6.35%) compared to NLAES (1.86%). This suggests that though hazardous use appears to largely drive the discrepancy between these datasets, additional aspects of abuse diagnosis across the two surveys (e.g., the recurrence/duration requirement; see Does Recurrence/Duration Assessment Make a Difference? section below) appear to contribute further to differences in AUD prevalence that are reflected in substantial increases in other abuse criteria (i.e., legal and interpersonal problems), as shown in Table 3.
