The most significant contribution from this study to the early drinking onset literature is our finding that individuals who reported an age at first drink 2 or more years older at the second than the first assessment engaged in HED less frequently than consistent reporters. The implication is that an analysis of the association between HED and age at first alcohol use making use of Time 2 reports of age at first drink would lead to an underestimation of the number of early initiators and, even more importantly, those early initiators that were ‘lost’ would likely be lighter drinkers. The result would be an overrepresentation of heavy drinkers among those reporting an early age at first drink. As seen in our comparison of analyses conducted with Time 1 and Time 2 age onset reports, this bias in reporting age at drinking onset can lead to inflated estimates of the association between early use and risky or problem drinking. By no means do we conclude (based either on our own data or on prior studies in this area) that the risk
