Anita Washington

TL;DR: The prevalence of ASD varied considerably across sites and was higher than previous estimates since 2014, highlighting the variability in the evaluation and detection of ASD across communities and between sociodemographic groups.

TL;DR: The overall prevalence of ASD in the Early ADDM Network using DSM-5 criteria was higher in 2016 than the 2014 estimate, and children born in 2012 had a higher cumulative incidence of ASD diagnoses by age 48 months compared with children Born in 2008, which indicates more early identification in the younger group.

TL;DR: An evaluation conducted using guidelines established by CDC for evaluating public health surveillance systems is based on examination of the following characteristics of the ADDM Network surveillance system: simplicity, flexibility, data quality, acceptability, representativeness, sensitivity, predictive value positive (PVP), timeliness, stability, data confidentiality and security, and sources of variability.

TL;DR: There was a trend toward increase in identified ASD prevalence among 8-year-old children who met the surveillance case definition in 3 of the 4 study sites from 2000 to 2004, confirming that the prevalence of ASDs is undergoing significant change in some areas of the United States and that ASDs continue to be of urgent public health concern.

TL;DR: The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network is an active surveillance program that provides estimates of the prevalence of ASD among children aged 8 years as discussed by the authors , which is the most recent available data.