Limitations to the current study include the inability to take into account severity and chronicity of trauma exposure. Additionally, the current study did not investigate if heavier alcohol use increased the risk of experiencing a trauma. That is, heavy alcohol use and problem involvement may increase the risk for additional trauma exposure by increasing the likelihood of engaging in high-risk behaviors (Haller and Chassin, 2014, Baskin-Sommers and Sommers, 2006). Third, there is epidemiological evidence that AUD occurs later in AA women (Grant et al., 2012). Therefore, further follow-up with the AA participants may clarify the relationship between trauma exposure and AUD in AA women, as in our sample, it is likely that not all the AA women have passed through the age of risk. Additional methodological limitations include the potential for recall bias of ages of onset for both substance and trauma related measures as well use of a Midwestern cohort that might not be generalizable to national and global populations. The current findings suggest etiological models of alcohol involvement for AA and EA women must be considered discretely as
