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Nearly 30% of Youth with ASD Not Getting Treatment
JAMA Pediatrics; ePub 2018 Dec 3; Xu, Strathearn, et al
The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the US is relatively high, and it varies substantially across US states, according to a recent study. Furthermore, almost 30% of US children with ASD did not receive behavioral or medication treatment, which calls for a critical need to understand and address the barriers for those children to receive appropriate treatments. Using data from the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health, a nationwide, population-based, cross-sectional survey, researchers included 43,032 children aged 3 to 17 years. They found:
- Of total participants, 22,072 (51.3%) were male, and the mean (SD) age was 10.7 (4.4) years.
- The weighted prevalence of ever-diagnosed ASD and current ASD were 2.79% and 2.50%, respectively.
- The state-level prevalence of ever-diagnosed ASD varied from 1.54% in Texas to 4.88% in Florida.
- Nationally, about 70% of children with current ASD (70.5%) were treated; 43.3% received behavioral treatment only, 6.9% received medication treatment only, and 20.3% received both behavioral and medication treatments.
- The remaining 29.5% of children with current ASD did not receive either behavioral or medication treatment.
Xu G, Strathearn L, Liu B, et al. Prevalence and treatment patterns of autism spectrum disorder in the United States, 2016. [Published online ahead of print December 3, 2018]. JAMA Pediatrics. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.4208.