ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2026
Time trends in the male to female ratio for autism incidence: population based, prospectively collected, birth cohort study.
Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Trial
- Trends in Parent-Reported Developmental Disabilities: 2019-2024.Pediatrics · 2026Article
- Individual and Sex Differences in Behavior and Cortical Excitability in the Rat Valproate Model of Autism.Cells · 2026Article
- Diametrically opposed sex-specific effects of autistic traits on risk-taking in poker.PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2026Article
- Preservation of Higher-Order Cognition in Autistic Females: Evidence from Two Deeply-Phenotyped Cohorts in Hong Kong and the United States.Research square · 2026Article
- Autism spectrum disorder: has it lost its meaning and is it leading to misdiagnosis?Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Genomic, Transcriptomic, and Regulomic Analyses Do Not Support Profound Autism as a Distinct Biological Category.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Special Issue: Genetic Basis of Autism Spectrum Disorder.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Article
- Reclaiming selfhood: towards a conceptualisation of the autistic unmasking process.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Autism spectrum disorder burden across 798 locations, 1990-2023: frontier and inequality mapping in the context of child injury prevention and safety promotion.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Gender differences in autism prevalence: origins of bias and its current scientific relevance.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- A prevalence study of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Russia.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo examine changes in the male to female ratio in diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) over a 35 year period, providing temporal trends in diagnosis (incidence rate), the male to female ratio, and the age-cohort specific cumulative male to female ratio (cMFR).
designPopulation based, prospectively collected birth cohort study.
participants2 756 779 liveborn children recorded in the Swedish medical birth register between 1985 and 2020.
settingSweden.
main outcome measureAge-period cohort analysis investigating associations between ASD and age at diagnosis, calendar period, birth cohort, and sex, quantified by incidence rate ratios and associated two sided 95% confidence intervals.
resultsAmong 2 756 779 individuals born in Sweden between 1985 and 2020, ASD was diagnosed in 78 522 (2.8%) by the end of follow-up (2022). The incidence rate for ASD increased with each five year age interval throughout childhood, peaking at 645.5 (per 100 000 person years) for the male cohort at age 10-14 years and 602.6 for the female cohort at age 15-19 years in 2020-2022, and then decreased. Age specific incidence of ASD increased for each calendar period and birth cohort between 1985 and 2020. The male to female ratio decreased with increasing age at diagnosis and, for those older than 10 years, by calendar period. For the final year of follow-up in 2022, the cumulative male to female ratio for incidence of ASD was 1.2 by age 20 years. Further projection of these trends suggested that the cumulative male to female ratio would reach parity at age 20 years by 2024.
conclusionFindings indicate that the male to female ratio for ASD has decreased over time and with increasing age at diagnosis. This male to female ratio may therefore be substantially lower than previously thought, to the extent that, in Sweden, it may no longer be distinguishable by adulthood. This finding highlights a need to investigate why girls and women receive diagnoses of ASD later than boys and men.
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