Although parental divorce and parental discord are associated with offspring alcohol use behaviors, not all offspring exposed to these familial stressors go on to experience alcohol-related problems. In this study, informed by the diathesis-stress gene-by-environment interaction model (Shanahan & Hofer, 2005), we sought to understand variability in offspring responses to these common familial adversities. We examined whether children’s polygenic loading for alcohol problems modified the associations between parental divorce, parental discord, and regular drinking initiation and risk for developing alcohol use disorder in a high-risk, diverse sample of European and African ancestry participants.
