Although cocaine dependent cases had a higher prevalence of PTSD, it is important to note that the community-based participants also had alarmingly high rates compared to the general population. Among individuals who experienced any traumatic event, 14% of our community-based participants reported PTSD compared to 7 - 9% reported in other population-based studies (Breslau et al., 1998; Breslau et al., 2004; Hapke et al., 2006; Kessler et al., 1995). Because our community-based participants experienced a high number of traumatic events, particularly violent events, it makes sense that they would also have elevated prevalence of PTSD. It is also possible that other neighborhood or community level factors (e.g., social support) could influence the risk of PTSD after experiencing trauma; however, these variables were not directly measured in our study.
