A number of study limitations should be noted. First,
the analyses are limited to past-year drinkers, most of
whom have had few problems, limiting potential generalizability
of results. Second, our data are drawn from mid-tolarge-
sized California cities, so the study results are not
necessarily representative of rural or urban areas. Third,
these analyses consider drinking in only 6 contexts, representing
a small sample of possible drinking contexts.
Planned work will allow us to better capture the full range
of drinking contexts in the same cities with a different sample
of adolescents. Fourth, our data do not allow us to
definitively determine the direction of causality- or linkspecific
drinking occasions to problems, which were measured
as past-year and without regard to the context in
which the problems occurred. Methods such as ecological
momentary assessment will permit us to look at the temporal
ordering of drinking in specific contexts and sameor
next-day problems. Finally, while our analyses indicate
that elements of certain drinking contexts, aside from the
amount of alcohol consumed, are related to alcohol-related
problems among adolescents, these data do not enable us
to discern which characteristics of riskier contexts might
contribute to these associations. More work is needed to
understand these social–ecological mechanisms.