Pathways to adverse health development and increased healthcare consumption in patients with autism spectrum disorders – the role of individual factors and pharmacological treatment

The number of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in childhood or adulthood has strongly increased over the past decades.

While research demonstrates that people with ASD are at risk of adverse health outcomes including preterm mortality, scientific knowledge on the pathways leading to adverse health outcomes and an increased health care consumption, along with the effectiveness of different pharmacotherapies, is limited.The overall aim is to characterize pathways to increased health care consumption and adverse health outcomes in individuals with ASD diagnosed in childhood, as compared to those diagnosed in adulthood, and to examine the influence of various individual factors as well as treatment effectiveness in lowering the risk of adverse health outcomes and elevated health care needs.Data and method: The studies build on linked register data in Sweden and Finland.

The study populations in Sweden include 84,012 individuals diagnosed with ASD during 2003-2018 as well as two comparison groups: 1) individuals from the general population; and 2) full-siblings.

Cutting edge methodology such as network- and machine learning models as well as novel methods in pharmacoepidemiology will be applied.

The five-year project involves interdisciplinary collaboration including clinicians and epidemiologists.This project provides crucial scientific knowledge necessary to design optimal health care and pharmacological treatment for patients with ASD.