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IJE Advance Access originally published online on September 7, 2009
International Journal of Epidemiology 2009 38(5):1243-1244; doi:10.1093/ije/dyp263
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2009; all rights reserved.

Author's Response Commentaries on diagnostic accretion and the increased prevalence of measured autism

Peter Bearman* and Marissa King

Institute for Social & Economic Research and Policy, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.

* Corresponding author. E-mail: psb17@columbia.edu

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Authors are always grateful to those who spend time and effort commenting on papers; in this case, we are exceptionally grateful that many of the leading figures whose work has advanced our understanding of autism so profoundly gave so freely of their thoughts. Our response will be brief and oriented towards the future more than the past.

The goal we all share is to understand the increased prevalence of autism and the first, and most important, step is to build integrated data structures that allow one to decompose the increase in prevalence into its constituent elements—those parts that arise from diagnostic and social dynamics, environmental changes, genetics and so on. All of these causal mechanisms are real; and all of them play some role in driving increased prevalence. The major scientific and population health questions at hand are: first, ‘How big a role each of the factors play?’ and secondly, . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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