Patterns of alcohol use among ethnic minority adolescent women

There is agreement in the literature that women of the major ethnic groups in the United States have lower rates of alcohol use and suffer fewer alcohol-related problems than men. In adolescence, the highest rates of alcohol use are generally found among American Indians, followed in decreasing order by whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asian-Americans. The role of sociocultural factors in alcohol use as found in the literature is discussed, including level of acculturation, generational status, culturally specific values and beliefs and peer influence. Lifetime and last 30-day prevalence, age of first time drunk, and peer sanction data from the 1989-93 database of The American Drug and Alcohol Survey are presented by gender and ethnicity for 8th and 12th graders. These data show similar rates of alcohol use by males and females in the 8th grade but more use by males in the 12th grade for all ethnicities except American Indians who live on reservations.