QuestionQuestion
What is the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in adults in England, and what are the characteristics of adults with ASD?
Population
7461 adults (age 16 years or older) living in the community. Participants were members of private households sampled for the third national Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey in England. To select households for participation, post code sectors were first stratified by socioeconomic status, then further stratified based on proportions of adults in non-manual labour jobs and proportion of households without a motor vehicle as reported in 2001 census data. Postal code sectors were sampled from each stratum, yielding 519 selected postal code sectors. From each of these selected sectors, 28 addresses were randomly selected. Households with at least one person older than 16 years were eligible. Of these 14 532 addresses, 13 171 met eligibility criteria. Of the eligible households, 7461 agreed…