The greater degree of inconsistency in age at first drink reports among African-Americans compared with Caucasians in our sample was also documented by Johnson and Mott (2001). One hypothesis worth examining is that the high rates of upward shifts in reported age is related to the older age at first use among African-Americans (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2006; Rothman et al., 2009). When early initiators are asked to recall age onset, they may revert to norms among their same-ethnicity peers. For African-Americans, the larger gap between (non ethnicity-specific) early onset and average age at first drink among their African-American peers may translate into greater upward shifts in reported age at first alcohol use.
