Azeen Ghorayshi at NYT:
The percentage of American children estimated to have autism spectrum disorder increased in 2022, continuing a long-running trend, according to data released on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among 8-year-olds, one in 31 were found to have autism in 2022, compared with 1 in 36 in 2020. That rate is nearly five times as high as the figure in 2000, when the agency first began collecting data.
The health agency noted that the increase was most likely being driven by better awareness and screening, not necessarily because autism itself was becoming more common.
That diverged sharply from the rhetoric of the nation’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who on Tuesday said, “The autism epidemic is running rampant.”
Autism prevalence among children aged 8 years increased from 2020 to 2022. Prevalence in 2022 continued to vary widely across sites. Differences in prevalence over time and across sites can reflect differing practices in ASD evaluation and identification and availability and requirements that affect accessibility of services (e.g., meeting financial or diagnostic eligibility requirements). A/PI, Black, Hispanic, and multiracial children continued to have higher prevalence of ASD than White children, and children in low MHI or high vulnerability communities for five sites had higher prevalence of ASD than children in high MHI or low vulnerability communities. As evidence grows of increased access to identification among previously underserved groups, attention might shift to what factors, such as SDOH [social determinants of health], could lead to higher rates of disability among certain populations. A higher rate of ASD identification by 48 months was found among children born in 2018 compared with children born in 2014. The cohort born in 2018 received more evaluations and ASD identifications than the cohort born in 2014 did during the same age window; disruption was visible at COVID-19 pandemic onset in early 2020 but the pattern of higher identification reappeared by the end of 2020. Continued increases in prevalence and improvements in early identification of ASD could indicate increasing need for services. Opportunities exist to learn from successful policies, systems, and practices in different communities and implement approaches for equitable identification or service eligibility to help families or persons receive the support they need as early as possible to improve outcomes for children with ASD.
