Study Shows That Autism Awareness Responsible For Higher Number Of Diagnosed Cases

As more awareness surfaces around Autism, a behavioral health issue marked by certain antisocial behaviors, more have been diagnosed with the medial problem throughout the world. As various stories have noted a spike in the issue over the years, many belief this is primarily due to increased awareness and knowledge of the problem. 

"As our study shows, much of the increase can be attributed to the redefinition of what autism is and which diagnoses are reported," said lead study author Stefan Hansen, from the section for biostatistics in the department of public health at Aarhus University, via CBS News. "The increase in the observed autism prevalence is not due alone to environmental factors that we have not yet discovered."

For the study, researchers from Aarhus University and the Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research examined data on 678,000 children who were born between 1980 and 1991 in Denmark, of which 3,965 of them were diagnosed with ASDs by December 2011.

When the researchers compared the number of cases between time periods, they found that the rate increased 192 between 1980 and 1992 to 3,664 between 1996 and the end of the study. The team noted that in 1994, the diagnostic criteria in Denmark change, while in 1995, the country's health registries started to include all cases of ASDs that were diagnosed outside of a hospital.

Furthermore, researchers attributed 60 percent of the cases to changes in the diagnostic criteria. They could not, however, determine what factors were behind the remaining 40 percent of cases. The team theorized that several variables, such as parental age during conception and environmental factors could have affected these numbers.

"The findings from this study are consistent with past research documenting the role of non-causal factors, such as increase in autism awareness, changes to diagnostic criteria and the increase in autism prevalence over time," concluded Amy Daniels, the assistant director for public health research at Autism Speaks, a New York City-based advocacy group.

More informatino regarding the findings can be seen via JAMA Pediatrics.