Building on the literature linking early alcohol use to risky and problem drinking - much of which depends on retrospective reports - we examined the association between consistency in reported age at first drink and frequency of HED during the period of heaviest drinking. The two patterns of inconsistent reporting were characterized with respect to ethnicity, childhood maltreatment, psychiatric conditions, and other substance use. Although ethnicity and other demographic factors have been examined in relation to stability in alcohol onset reports (Johnson and Mott, 2001; Prause et al., 2007; Shillington and Clapp, 2000), ours is among the first to explore childhood and adolescent risk factors and to test the association between stability of age at first drink report and alcohol misuse.
