Although the prior study (8) was an important initial effort, it was limited to a small sample of AA Veterans with HIV infection, and demographically similar uninfected controls. That study did not consider age-adjusted mean AUDIT-C score, a simpler and more generalizable metric, nor did it evaluate the ADH1B polymorphism more commonly seen in EAs (rs1229984). Herein, we report the strength of association between the ADH1B polymorphisms—rs2066702 in AAs and rs1229984 in EAs—with previously validated AUDIT-C trajectories in the larger, more generalizable Million Veteran Program (MVP) sample (9). We also compared these associations to those using age-adjusted mean AUDIT-C score. Because ICD codes are increasingly used for phenome-wide association studies (PheWASs) (10–13), we also compared AUDIT-C metrics to ICD codes for AUD. The goal of these comparisons was to use longitudinal EHR data to determine the most informative phenotype for efforts at gene finding for harmful drinking.
