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TOPLINE:
Unmet healthcare needs among children with autism spectrum disorder increased from 2016 to 2023, with a slight drop in 2020 followed by a rise in 2023. Unmet mental health care needs surged in 2020 and then stabilized.
METHODOLOGY:
- Researchers conducted a cross-sectional study to examine annual trends in unmet healthcare needs among 8246 children with autism (mean age, 8.7 years; 77.3% boys) using data from the National Survey of Children's Health, covering 2016 to 2023.
- Parents reported their child's autism diagnoses and severity.
- Five types of unmet healthcare needs were measured: medical, dental, vision, hearing, and mental health, with general needs calculated as the number of these five types.
TAKEAWAY:
- The weighted prevalence of unmet healthcare needs among children with autism increased from 7.1% to 15.2% (P = .01), with a brief decline in 2020 and a pronounced peak in 2023.
- The weighted prevalence of unmet mental health needs rose in 2020 and then stabilized, increasing from 4.6% to 7.5% from 2019 to 2021 (P = .01).
- Medical needs increased significantly in 2020 and subsequently returned to near-2019 levels.
- Trends for unmet dental, vision, and hearing healthcare needs were statistically insignificant.
IN PRACTICE:
"Future research and policy efforts are needed to expand health care delivery and strengthen pediatric behavioral health capacity," the authors of the study wrote.
SOURCE:
The study was led by Tingxuan Wang, PhD, of the School of Nursing at the Nanjing Medical University in China. It was published online as a research letter on March 16, 2026, in JAMA Pediatrics.
LIMITATIONS:
Details on forgone healthcare services were limited.
DISCLOSURES:
No relevant conflicts of interest were disclosed by the authors.
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
