Most previous investigations of abuse and dependence criteria using IRT focused on psychometric properties of existing criteria without evaluating new criteria, and our IRT analyses of existing abuse/dependence criteria are generally in line with this previous research (Gelhorn et al., 2008, Harford et al., 2009, Kahler and Strong, 2006, Krueger et al., 2004, Langenbucher et al., 2004, Martin et al., 2006, Proudfoot et al., 2006, Saha et al., 2006, Wu et al., 2009); one exception is a recent study of middle-aged men in the general population that examined the structure of the alcohol use disorder continuum using 110 alcohol items, including an item capturing craving (Krueger et al., 2004). Similar the present study, craving exhibited relatively high severity and discrimination. Additionally, recent analyses suggest a quantity/frequency indicator might be a useful criteria to capture the less severe end of the alcohol disorders continuum (Saha et al., 2007), leading some to call for its inclusion in the DSM-V (Li et al., 2007b, Martin et al., 2008). However, including weekly at-risk drinking may have a large impact on the prevalence of alcohol
