Dick et al. 9 discuss the importance of including African Americans in genetic studies because such samples may contain genetic variants that differentially impact the etiology of AUD compared to other racial/ethnic groups. For example, African Americans typically have greater genetic diversity and different allele frequencies based on ancestral history that could be absent in European Americans. Several factors are discussed that may contribute to the reduced participation of African Americans in genetic studies. First, African Americans constitute a small fraction of the overall U.S. population and are distributed differentially across the country. Further, the ancestral diversity/admixture among different African American groups increases the analytic complexity for genetic studies, limiting the utility of self-identified race/ethnicity. Unfortunately, many current genetic studies use existing data sets that are mostly European American, with poor representation of racial/ethnic minority groups, including African Americans.
