And, finally, we believe that understanding an internalizing pathway to SUDs is also important for developing effective preventive interventions. Knowledge about this pathway can inform the development of early intervention and prevention programs for SUDs, targeting youth as early as preschool when risk may be more malleable and intervention more successful. Because most early prevention work focuses on risk associated with externalizing processes, the explication of an internalizing pathway may also suggest novel targets of risk for an early age period. Although we believe that this internalizing pathway will be relevant for understanding processes leading to SUDs in a broad array of adolescents, we also believe that this pathway may be most evident within an established high risk sub-population, namely children of alcoholics.
