g., Wagenaar et al. 2001) as well as in perceived social norms (e.g., Keyes et al. 2012) have been shown to contribute to changes in alcohol use. Of particular interest are historical full report shifts that relate to changes in developmental trajectories. Latent growth modeling analyses with multicohort data have demonstrated that, compared with earlier cohorts, more recent cohorts exhibit lower initial levels of binge drinking but more rapid increases from age 18 to young adulthood (Jager et al. 2013). This acceleration of alcohol use helps explain the findings that use among adolescents has been decreasing at faster rates than among young adults in recent decades. Figure Trends in alcohol use in the past 12 months and in having been drunk in the past 30 days for 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, 1991�C2011.

Predictors of Alcohol Use Among Adolescents Despite the changes in alcohol use that have occurred over the past three decades, the relevant risk and protective factors tend to remain very stable across historic time, age, gender, and race/ethnicity (e.g., Brown et al. 2001; Donovan et al. 1999; Patrick and Schulenberg 2010). Like many other large-scale studies on adolescent AOD use, the MTF study has cast a wide net in terms of risk and protective factors, correlates, and consequences of substance use. Not only is this approach well suited to placing alcohol use within the larger context of adolescent development, it makes good use of the MTF large-scale survey approach that emphasizes breadth of measurement.

Conceptually, the analyses drew from broad multidomain models when examining causes, correlates, and outcomes of adolescent alcohol use (e.g., Brown et al. 2009; Chassin et al. 2009; Maggs and Schulenberg 2005). This section summarizes MTF study findings concerning several domains of predictors of AOD use during adolescence, after considering methodological issues when examining causes and consequences of adolescent alcohol use. Methodological Issues in Understanding Risk Factors for and Consequences of Adolescent Alcohol Use When considering the correlates of AOD use, any attempt to discern whether these correlates are causes or consequences of substance use is hampered by three factors: Firm conclusions about causal connections are difficult without randomly controlled experiments.

Alcohol use during adolescence typically is reciprocally related to risk factors across development, such that problems that contribute to alcohol use may get worse with continued alcohol use (e.g., Cairns and Cairns, 1994; Dodge et al. 2009; Schulenberg and Maslowsky 2009). Factors that are identified as causes or as consequences of alcohol use during adolescence in the Entinostat total sample likely do not apply to all young people, given the heterogeneity in developmental course (Schulenberg 2006).