A second limitation concerns the age range of the sample at study enrollment. Within the full study cohort, baseline ages ranged from 9 to 23, which is a broad range within which to consider issues related specifically to adolescent substance use. This report focuses only on individuals who were at or above the age of 14 years at baseline and around the age of 16 or older at follow-up, given that alcohol use is virtually nonexistent before that time. The youngest members of our initial baseline cohort are now reaching mid-adolescence when they are expected to initiate use. As these data become available, techniques such as linear mixed modeling and structural equation modeling can be applied to the data to examine more precisely the hypotheses suggested by the current findings.
