LOS ANGELES, April 16 (Xinhua) -- About 1 in 31 American children aged 8 years were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in 2022, according to a new report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The findings were based on an analysis of the CDC's latest Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network survey. The survey was conducted in 2022 across 16 sites in the United States on children aged 8 years.
This latest autism prevalence is 4.8 times higher than 22 years ago, when prevalence was 1 in 150 children, according to the report published on Tuesday.
Minority children were more severely affected. Black, Asian, and Hispanic children in the 2022 survey had higher overall ASD prevalence than White children, and were also more likely to have a more severe form of autism, according to the report.
"This report exposes a series of critical public health crises, including a persistent rise in ASD prevalence, an alarming escalation in case severity, and increasingly stark disparities across racial and ethnic groups. This also highlights the urgent need for real-time data," said a release of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
"The autism epidemic has now reached a scale unprecedented in human history because it affects the young," said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
