For the purposes of the current study, we selected a sub-sample of the prospective population comprised of subjects who were 18 or older at the time of their most recent interview, had ever had one full drink of alcohol, and who had experienced at least one potentially traumatic event (PTE) per Criterion A for DSM-IV PTSD (N = 2,478). A PTE is defined as the experience or witnessing of an event(s) that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, and which caused intense fear, helplessness, or horror (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Conditioning subject inclusion on ever experiencing a PTE and ever drinking a full drink of alcohol in one’s lifetime was necessary because each are qualifiers for PTSD and AUD assessment, respectively. Additionally, due to the low number of individuals of other race/ethnic backgrounds, and correspondingly low power to detect inter-group differences, only individuals self-identifying as white (European American) or Black (African American) were included in these analyses (these individuals comprised 92% of the eligible group).
