Interestingly, developmental trends in drinking behaviors and levels of use have been shown to differ substantially between African Americans and European Americans (refer to Table 1 for a listing of studies reviewed). In comparison to their European American counterparts, African American youth report lower levels of use (Bachman et al., 1991; Johnston, O’Malley, & Bachman, 1994; O’Malley, Johnston, & Bachman, 2008; Poulin, 1991; Wallace et al., 2003a; Wallace, Brown, Bachman, & LaVeist, 2003b), begin drinking at a later age (Catalano et al., 1993; Johnson, Richter, Kleber, McLellan, & Carise, 2005; Watt, 2004), engage in less heavy drinking (Bachman et al., 1991; Wallace et al., 2003a), and show slower increases in rates of drinking in the early adolescent years (Johston et al., 1994; Warheit, Vega, Khoury, Gil, & Elfenbein, 1996) Based on a national survey that was given to youth aged 12–17, 18% of European Americans compared to 10% of African American youth reported using alcohol in the past 30 days. Moreover, 42% of European Americans compared to only 34% of African Americans reported consuming at least one alcoholic beverage in
