Prevalence and incidence rates of autism in the UK: time trend from 2004-2010 in children aged 8 years.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To update UK studies begun in the early 1990s on the annual prevalence and incidence rates of autism in children; undertaken in response to a March 2012 press release, widely covered by the media, from the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) reporting that the autism prevalence rate in 2008 in 8-year-old US children was 1 in 88, a 78% increase from a CDC estimate in 2004. This finding suggested a continuation of the dramatic increase in children diagnosed as autistic, which occurred in the 1990s.

Design

Population study using the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD).

Methods

Annual autism prevalence rates were estimated for children aged 8 years in 2004-2010 by dividing the number diagnosed as autistic in each or any previous year by the number of c

SUBMITTER: Taylor B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3808754 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature