Review: Prevalence and co-occurrence of addictions in US ethnic/racial groups: Implications for genetic research.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative literature review without systematic quantitative synthesis
PubMed 27759944 · doi:10.1111/ajad.12464
What was done
The authors reviewed literature indexed in MEDLINE and PsycINFO regarding the prevalence and co-occurrence of 12 addictive behaviors (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, illicit drugs, gambling, eating/food, internet, sex, love, exercise, work, and shopping) across US ethnic and racial groups, evaluating implications for addiction genetics research.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical estimates. It found that minimal research evaluates the co-occurrence of addictions across US ethnic groups. Existing comparative studies focused almost exclusively on substances and gambling, observing prevalence differences among racial and ethnic groups. Almost no comparative data existed across ethnic groups for behavioral addictions such as eating/food, internet, love, sex, exercise, work, or shopping.
Why it matters
It exposes a major research blind spot in how diverse populations experience comorbid and behavioral addictions. Recognizing these disparities and data gaps is crucial for designing valid genetic studies, particularly regarding population stratification, subgroup disaggregation, and gene-environment interactions.
Limits
The abstract provides no quantitative data, sample sizes, or total study counts. As a narrative review, it lacks a formal systematic quality assessment or meta-analytic pooling, and findings are heavily constrained by the scarcity of existing primary literature on non-substance addictions in minority populations.
Cited by
- context Asians, and particularly Asian women, carry a genetic predisposition to gambling at higher rates than other racial groups.