The majority of genetic studies to date have been conducted in European-ancestry individuals even though there has been a historical interest in studying risk / resilience factors for AUD in AI/AN populations, This is because research on AUD can be facilitated by studying large, extended families and/or well-defined populations, such as AI/AN, that are likely to be more genetically and environmentally homogeneous than the general US population. If clinical diagnosis is the phenotype, then low prevalence samples are more likely to reveal genes conferring susceptibility to AUD whereas in high prevalence samples, such as some AI/AN tribes, the tribal members without AUD are likely to be informative about genetic mechanisms of resilience.
