Our examination of cannabis-related problems indicated that the association with childhood maltreatment is significant and equally strong for EA and AA women. This is consistent with previous research utilizing samples of predominantly European ancestry (e.g., Afifi et al., 2012; Duncan et al., 2008; Kendler et al., 2000; Rogosch et al., 2010) but divergent from the limited work contrasting AAs and EAs, which suggests that the association might be weaker for AAs (Werner et al., 2016) or, in the case of sexual abuse specifically, only significant for onset of problem use beyond age 21 (Sartor et al., 2015). Importantly, unlike these previous studies, the present results are unadjusted for potential confounding factors, e.g., family-level risk factors and co-occurring psychopathology, which may have a greater impact on associations of childhood maltreatment with cannabis outcomes in AAs than EAs.
