• Numerous stereotypes exist about American Indians' use of alcohol.
• New research examines alcohol dependence among Northern Plains and Southwest tribes.
• Although rates of alcohol dependence are higher than U.S. averages, they are not as high as previous research has indicated.

Numerous stereotypes exist about American Indians' use of alcohol. However, a new study of alcohol dependence among two culturally distinct tribes in the United States - called Northern Plains (NP) and Southwest (SW) tribes in the report - has found that alcohol problems are not nearly as serious as some stereotypes may suggest. Results are published in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

"Previous research has tended to report on only one tribe or to aggregate American Indian samples in ways that do not permit explicit examination of cultural issues," said Paul Spicer, associate professor of psychiatry in American Indian and Alaska Native Programs at the University of Colorado Health Sciences, and first author of the study. "While no one study could do justice to the tremendous cultural diversity among contemporary American Indian tribes, we wanted to include two distinct tribal populations representing important variations in aboriginal subsistence adaptation, social organization, and religious/spiritual traditions in order to document possible cultural differences in alcohol dependence."

"A lot of what was 'known' in the past about alcohol use among American Indians was anecdotal, stereotypical and fueled by bias," added Fred Beauvais, senior research scientist at the Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research at Colorado State University. "This manuscript helps to clarify that there is more abstinence from alcohol among American Indians than there is among non-Indians. I think the average person would be taken aback when hearing this since it contradicts the conventional wisdom."

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13-Nov-2003