In The Politics of Autism, I write about the everyday struggles facing autistic people and their families.
Autistic adults often face a range of physical and mental health conditions, but the relationship between these two types of health issues is not well understood. Our study looked at how often physical and mental health conditions in autistic adults occurred. We also examined the relationships between these conditions using a method called psychometric network analysis. We surveyed 327 autistic and 274 non-autistic adults, aged 30–90 years, about potential health conditions they faced and the perception of the quality of their health, also known as health-related quality of life. We found that autistic adults had a lower health-related quality of life and reported higher rates of all mental health conditions. Mood (45%), anxiety (22%), and personality disorders (21%) were most common. Autistic adults were between six and 34 times more likely to have these mental health conditions compared to non-autistic adults. In terms of physical health, autistic adults reported higher rates of bowel conditions (27%), allergies (48%), hypothyroid conditions (6%), and less robustly of strokes (CVA/TIAs; 3%), and rheumatic conditions (31%)— and a two- to four-times higher risk than non-autistic adults. Using psychometric network analysis, we found that mental health conditions in autistic adults are closely linked, showing how complex their health challenges are. While there was no single condition that connected physical and mental health in particular, we found several links between the two. These findings emphasize the need for improved healthcare and broader societal changes to enhance the well-being of autistic individuals.
From the article:
In the physical health domain, bowel conditions, respiratory conditions, and allergies showed most connections to other conditions in the network, suggesting they may be key targets for intervention. Hypothetically, they add to the stress that autistic adults already face and deteriorate other physical and mental health problems (Grant et al., 2022). Evidently, such conditions might also be a consequence of stress and MHCs (Ohrnberger et al., 2017). In both cases, improved medical care might reduce the burden for autistic adults. As noted by others, it is essential to take away existing healthcare barriers (Malik-Soni et al., 2022; Mason et al., 2019; Walsh et al., 2020; Warreman, Ester, et al., 2023). The SPACE framework (Sensory needs, Predictability, Acceptance, Communication, and Empathy) highlights principles for making healthcare more accommodating (Doherty et al., 2023). First steps can be in simple solutions such as increasing consultation time to adapt to longer processing time, securing consistent healthcare providers to accommodate a need for consistency and familiarity, and embedding e-Health solutions to ease communication (Mason et al., 2019; Warreman, Ester, et al., 2023). In addition, addressing the “triple empathy problem”—the mutual misunderstandings between autistic individuals and healthcare providers—might reduce healthcare avoidance and improve interactions (Shaw et al., 2024).
