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Where in Britain is ASD most and least common

Arran

Does the NAS have any information about which parts of Britain (at least down to local authority level) have the highest and lowest proportions of people with ASD?

I would be very suprised if people with ASD are evenly spread throughout Britain. It's possible that there could be concentrated pockets of people with ASD in a few towns and areas where it is extremely uncommon. 

  • StephenHarris said:
    How many people are estimated to be on the spectrum in the UK?

    Good question. Kanner stated that ASD was rare but Asperger stated that ASD was not particularly rare.

  • How many people are estimated to be on the spectrum in the UK?

  • I have been thinking about how demographically extreme areas vary from the national average. Examples include:

    1. Deep rural areas - Mid Wales, Highlands of Scotland, Lincolnshire.

    2. Economically depressed urban areas with an almost exclusively white British population - South Tyneside, Knowsley, Hull.

    3. Inner London boroughs - Hackney, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets.

    4. New towns - Basildon, Crawley, Telford.

    5. Provincial cities with large ethnic and immigrant populations - Bradford, Leicester.

    6. Areas where a higher than average proportion of people work in STEM and computing careers - Cambridge, Reading.

  • I suppose there are regional differences.  But as Oktanol suspects, I also think it would be due to the willingness of local areas to refer people to diagnosis.

    I know I have seen statistics that suggest that Autism is more prevalent in red-headed people, those with a squint (strabismus), and those with blue eyes than would be suggested by the proportion of those in the population.  But I don't know how valid these statistics are and whether there is genuinely a correlation.

    And I suppose blood groups, whether or not left or right handed, size of fingers or toes relative to each other, thickness of hair, size of ears and distance between eyes and other aspects may also throw up some statistics that may or may not have correlation, especially if several of the conditions are present.

    Such things may be interesting, but if correlation was found could have profound and possibly sinister consequences.  But it could make the possibility of being referred for a diagnosis a lot easier if certain things were known to have some correlation.

  • NHS trusts might have the stats of people diagnosed.

  • It will be interesting to know whether or not there are strong correlations between the proportions of children and adults with ASD on a locality by locality basis.

  • If they have such data (which they will, I guess, but perhaps haven't done such a comparison) then the next question would be whether any regional differences are due to real differences in the number of people with ASD or due to differences in the efficiency of identifying them. I can well imagine that the latter would cover the former...