The key findings of this study – that racial disparities in alcohol problems persist even after rigorously controlling for heavy drinking, and that they appear greatest among those who seldom drink heavily, if at all – raise intriguing questions for future research. One question is whether these findings reflect, in part, group differences in drink size reporting, as observed in recent methodological studies by Kerr and colleagues. In one such study, the volume of participants’ typical home drinks was measured using calibrated vessels and compared to participants’ self-reported drink size; results indicated that African American men were more likely than white men to underestimate the amount of alcohol consumed (Kerr, et al., 2008). Additionally, a study of drink size in bar settings suggested that spirits drinks had a higher alcohol content in bars that catered mostly to African Americans (Kerr, et al., in press). The underestimation of alcohol consumption might help to explain our findings that African Americans experience greater problems at lower levels of heavy drinking. However, subjective drunkenness was factored into our composite measure of heavy drinking, and thus should help to offset this potential problem.
