The above review of the current literature identified a critical gap in the study of environments: There is a need to include exposures at community and societal levels8. Some environmental conditions are also potentially more relevant to racial/ethnic minority populations. We start here by offering a few key considerations for selecting an environmental factor for inclusion in a G–E relationship study, and then highlight research findings from alcohol epidemiologic studies to introduce some potential environmental variables, at these higher levels of influence, that have not been previously studied in this manner.
