100 



Table 1 Prevalence and Population Estimates o( DSM-III-R Alcohol Abuse and Dependence by Age. Sex. and Ethnicity: 

 United States. 1988 



Alcohol Abuse Only 



Alcohol Dependence Only 



housing units, and all occupied housing 

 units were included in the NHIS 



Because of the complex design of the 

 NHIS sample, variance estimation proce- 

 dures thai assume a simple random sam- 

 ple vvere inadequate Research has shown 

 that clusienng and suauricalion of the 

 NHIS sample typically result in standard 

 errors at teasi 20 percent larger than those 

 thai would be obtained with a simple ran- 

 dom sample of equal size To take into 

 account the NHIS sample design, all 

 standard errors of the estimates presented 



in this report were generBied using 

 SUDAAN (Research Tnangle Institute 

 1 990). a software program that employs 

 Taylor series linearization to adjust for 

 sample design characteristics. 



DSM-III-R Classificatios 



The 1988 NHIS included an extensive 

 list of questions designed to assess the 

 presence of symptoms of alcohol abuse 

 and dependence during the preceding 



year. These questions were developed by 

 the principal author of this report specifi- 

 cally to operationalize DSM-IIl-R crite- 

 na for alcohol use disorders. Corre- 

 spondence of the DSM-ni-R criteria 

 with individual NHIS questions is shown 

 in the sidebar. 



According to DSM-UI-R. a diagnosis 

 of alcohol abuse requires that an individ- 

 ual exhibit a maladaptive pattern of alco- 

 hol use demonstrated either by continued 

 use — despite a persistent social, occupa- 

 tional, psychological, or physical prob- 



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