PTSD among youth and young adults who reported physical, sexual, non-assaultive trauma, and/or witnessed violence prior to the age of 18 was above 8%. This finding in COGA is slightly higher for both sexes and for African-Americans than in epidemiologic surveys that have examined the disorder’s prevalence among youth and young adults exposed to a traumatic event. The rates of PTSD for White males in COGA was 4.6% and 6.5% for Black males, compared to the overall male rate of 3.3% in the National Survey of Adolescents (Kilpatrick et al., 2003). The National Comorbidity Survey Replication-Adolescents found a lifetime prevalence of approximately 5% among 13- to 18-year-olds (Merikangas et al., 2010). In the general population, estimates of PTSD following the experience of a traumatic event range from 6.8% to 9.2% (Sareen, 2014), placing our findings at the high end of the PTSD estimate spectrum in population samples of adults. Additionally, while our sample is drawn from families at high risk of alcohol and other disorders, the PTSD findings are notable because our sample includes only participants aged 12–35 and limits the exposure to trauma to that experienced before age 18.
