Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2009; all rights reserved.
Editorial |
Hidden in plain sight
1 Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
2 New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA.
3 Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
4 Department of Anesthesiology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
* Corresponding author. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, 722 West 168th Street, NY 10032, New York, USA. E-mail: mab29@columbia.edu
Keywords Autism, time trends, prevalence
Accepted 30 July 2009
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
This issue of IJE includes a theme on autism edited by two of us (Ezra Susser and Michealine Bresnahan). Our colleague Guohua Li joins us to write this introduction.
In choosing this topic we venture into territory marked by controversy and conflict. The heat of the conflict is reflected in two recently published books,1,2 reviewed here by Stein3 and by Grinker.4 One of the flashpoints of controversy pertains to time trends in autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). ASDs are variously defined in epidemiological studies, but usually include ICD-10 Childhood Autism, Atypical Autism, Other Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Unspecified and Asperger's Syndrome. Recent reports suggest that 
0.4% of children are affected with autism, and 1% affected with ASD.5 This is about a 10-fold higher prevalence
Public health implications