Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Research Article

Temporal Trends and Changing Racial/ethnic Disparities in Alcohol Problems: Results from the 2000 to 2010 National Alcohol Surveys

Alcohol Research Group, Emeryville, CA, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Sarah E. Zemore, Ph.D.
Alcohol Research Group 6475 Christie Ave
Suite 400, Emeryville, CA 94608-1010, USA
Tel: 510-597-3440
Fax: 510-985-6459
E-mail: szemore@arg.org

Received date: July 25, 2013; Accepted date: September 18, 2013; Published date: September 28, 2013

Citation: Zemore SE, Karriker Jaffe KJ, Mulia N (2013) Temporal Trends and Changing Racial/ethnic Disparities in Alcohol Problems: Results from the 2000 to 2010 National Alcohol Surveys. J Addict Res Ther 4: 160. doi:10.4172/2155-6105.1000160

Copyright: © 2013 Zemore SE, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Economic conditions and drinking norms have been in considerable flux over the past 10 years. Accordingly, research is needed to evaluate both overall trends in alcohol problems during this period and whether changes within racial/ethnic groups have affected racial/ethnic disparities.

Methods: We used 3 cross-sectional waves of National Alcohol Survey data (2000, 2005, and 2010) to examine a) temporal trends in alcohol dependence and consequences overall and by race/ethnicity, and b) the effects of temporal changes on racial/ethnic disparities. Analyses involved bivariate tests and multivariate negative binomial regressions testing the effects of race/ethnicity, survey year, and their interaction on problem measures.

Results: Both women and men overall showed significant increases in dependence symptoms in 2010 (vs. 2000); women also reported increases in alcohol-related consequences in 2010 (vs. 2000). (Problem rates were equivalent across 2005 and 2000.) However, increases in problems were most dramatic among Whites, and dependence symptoms actually decreased among Latinos of both genders in 2010. Consequently, the long-standing disparity in dependence between Latino and White men was substantially reduced in 2010. Post-hoc analyses suggested that changes in drinking norms at least partially drove increased problem rates among Whites.

Conclusion: Results constitute an important contribution to the literature on racial/ethnic disparities in alcohol problems. Findings are not inconsistent with the macroeconomic literature suggesting increases in alcohol problems during economic recession, but the pattern of effects across race/ethnicity and findings regarding norms together suggest, at the least, a revised understanding of how recessions affect drinking patterns and problems.

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