Our findings from the 2005 NAS indicate that there are racial/ethnic differences in alcohol-related problems among current drinkers. Specifically, black and Hispanic drinkers are approximately 1.5 times more likely than whites to report one or more social consequences of drinking, and multiple dependence symptoms. Racial/ethnic differences in dependence are even greater when DSM-IV criteria are used to operationalize alcohol dependence. These findings depart from those based on the 2001–2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) (Grant, et al., 2004), which indicate higher overall rates of alcohol abuse among whites, and roughly similar rates of dependence across whites, blacks and Hispanics. Importantly, however, the NESARC rates pertain to the overall population of drinkers and non-drinkers and do not take into account racial/ethnic differences in abstinence. NAS findings for alcohol dependence in the overall sample (including non-drinkers) are more in keeping with NESARC results, given that black-white differences are relatively small and Hispanics show, overall, a higher rate of dependence than whites.
