tenyear trend in womens reasons for abstaining or limiting drinking the 2000 and 2010 united states national alcohol surveys background data on individual and cultural factors contributing to drinking can inform screening and brief intervention in clinical practice our aims were to examine 10year trends in womens reasons for abstaininglimiting drinking and to document changes in associations with drinking status for population subgroups defined by raceethnicity and agematerials and methods using repeated crosssectional data from white black and hispanic women in the 2000 and 2010 united states national alcohol surveys combined n5501 populationweighted multiple linear and multinomial logistic regression models assessed changes in three reasons for abstaining or limiting drinking health concerns religious prohibition and upsetting family or friends and drinking status pastyear abstainer lowrisk drinker or atrisk drinker and their associations over timeresults adjusting for key demographics reasons for limiting alcohol consumption declined in importance over time with reductions in both health concerns and religious prohibition particularly noteworthy for older women of all three racialethnic backgrounds despite these reductions in importance both health concerns and religious prohibition were most consistently associated with increased abstinence relative to lowrisk drinking these reasons were not strongly associated with atrisk drinking howeverconclusions it is essential for healthcare providers and others to disseminate accurate information about the risks of drinking to counter cultural shifts that suggest greater acceptance of moderatetoheavy drinking by women aged 40 and older