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The case for considering rather than ignoring race/ethnicity in substance abuse research

The aim statement for this journal describes our emphasis on studies and research that contribute to understanding ethnic and cultural variation in alcohol, tobacco, and licit and illicit forms of substance use and abuse. Despite a promising body of work that examines race/ethnicity in substance abuse, some scholars continue to blindly apply findings based on other groups to specific racial/ethnic groups. Others attend to diversity by including a small, albeit representative, sample of an ethnic group and then concluding that the overall findings apply to that group. In the future, whenever colleagues question the need for a more thorough examination of racial/ethnic differences in their work, I will refer them to this issue. Overall, the set of articles demonstrates racial/ethnic differences in the link between mental health risk factors and substance abuse and the characteristics of clients upon treatment entry. Other articles demonstrate variations in the prevalence of drug use patterns within and across age groups. Finally, an examination of issues related to operationally defining race/ethnicity in substance abuse research is also included. The presence of mental disorders as a risk factor for substance abuse has been widely investigated. However, racial/ethnic differences in the relationship of mental disorders to substance abuse have not received much attention. The article by Sumstine and colleagues makes a strong case for devoting more thought to such differences in future work. Specifically, although inattention predicted stimulant drug use in both White and Latino college students, inattention was also associated with cocaine use among Latinos but not Whites. Moreover, psychological distress was linked to marijuana use among Whites but to tobacco use and prescription painkillers among Asians. These differences may have significant implications for effective services for specific racial/ethnic groups. Two other articles demonstrate racial/ethnic differences in the characteristics that clients bring to substance abuse treatment. Bart and colleagues described differences in the psychosocial characteristics that Hmong clients bring to methadone treatment compared to others (primarily Whites, Blacks, none defined