Epidemiology of women's drinking.

Although U.S. and Canadian surveys conducted over the past two decades have found little evidence of major changes in drinking levels or drinking problems among women in general, change may be occurring within certain subgroups of women, for example, based on age, ethnicity, employment, or marital status. Women's drinking behavior shows significant linkages to aspects of women's social environments, including gender of co-workers and drinking behavior of significant others. The greater complexity of recent findings reflects the increasing maturation of epidemiological research on women's drinking.