A Scoping Review of Health Disparities in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Lauren Bishop-Fitzpatrick, Amy J H Kind
PMID 28756549WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of African American or Latino children with autism often reported poorer access to general medical care.
Girls and women were more likely to report psychiatric or emergency service use, and rural children used emergency care more. Physical health outcomes were not studied.
Key findings
01Nine eligible studies examined disparities in access to or quality of general medical care for people with ASD, and none examined physical health outcomes.
02Parents of African American or Latino children with ASD more often reported poorer access to and quality of general medical care than parents of White children.
03Disparities were also reported for lower socioeconomic status, rural residence, and female use of psychiatric or emergency services, but no sex difference was reported for physiotherapy service use.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only nine studies met inclusion criteria, so this is a map of a small and recent literature. The included studies were mostly cross-sectional, so they cannot show that access differences caused later physical health problems. Five studies used the same national survey, and most findings were parent or self report, so the results may not represent all people with ASD. The review found no studies on ethnicity, culture, gender identity, environment, or physical health outcomes. Almost all studies focused on childhood, and only one study included adults, and that study included participants only up to age 56.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that people with autism have worse physical health because of these disparities. The review found differences in access to general medical care, but none of the nine studies examined physical health outcomes.