Socioeconomic Inequality in the Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from a U.S. Cross-Sectional Study

Maureen S Durkin, Matthew J Maenner, F John Meaney, Susan E Levy, Carolyn DiGuiseppi, Joyce S Nicholas, Russell S Kirby, Jennifer A Pinto-Martin and Laura A Schieve

PLOS ONE, 2010, vol. 5, issue 7, 1-8

Abstract: Background: This study was designed to evaluate the hypothesis that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among children in the United States is positively associated with socioeconomic status (SES). Methods: A cross-sectional study was implemented with data from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, a multiple source surveillance system that incorporates data from educational and health care sources to determine the number of 8-year-old children with ASD among defined populations. For the years 2002 and 2004, there were 3,680 children with ASD among a population of 557 689 8-year-old children. Area-level census SES indicators were used to compute ASD prevalence by SES tertiles of the population. Results: Prevalence increased with increasing SES in a dose-response manner, with prevalence ratios relative to medium SES of 0.70 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.64, 0.76) for low SES, and of 1.25 (95% CI 1.16, 1.35) for high SES, (P

Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0011551

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011551

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