and therefore more severe range of alcohol problems, among individuals endorsing the more severe criteria. Second, it tests whether severity-weighted counts of endorsed criteria are more strongly associated with these AUD correlates than simple unweighted counts of endorsed criteria, in order to see whether the creation of a weighted scale is worth the time and effort in terms of yielding a more sensitive prognostic tool. Additionally, it examines the implications, both for the severity ranking of criteria and their use in creating a continuous AUD measure, of the specific symptom items endorsed, i.e., the operationalization of each criterion. The analysis is based on a nationally representative sample of U.S. past-year drinkers 18 years of age and older, using data from the Wave 1 NESARC.
