Evaluating Drivers of Age of Diagnosis Disparities for Virginia’s Rural Children with Autism

Despite the known benefits of early autism diagnosis, the average age in the U.S. is still around 4 years old. Research suggests that rural children may be diagnosed later than those living in urban areas, but the reasons for this disparity are not well described using traditional methods of rural classification. Using a state-wide payer dataset, we evaluated multiple geospatial drivers for age of diagnosis disparities in a cohort of children born in Virginia in 2011. Our findings suggest using a payer dataset with a larger sample across multiple states may help elucidate geographic-based drivers in age of diagnosis disparities.

A brief reception will be held following the lecture.

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