Michelle Dawson posts
Structured cited links
Morgan Krantz, Djhenne Dalmacy, Lauren Bishop, J. Madison Hyer, Brittany N. Hand (2023). Mortality rate and age of death among Medicare-enrolled autistic older adults. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 100, 102077. Elsevier BV.
Abstract
Background: An emerging body of evidence suggests that autistic people are at greater risk for mortality than non-autistic people. Yet, relatively little is known about mortality rates among autistic people during older adulthood (i.e., age 65 or older). Methods: We examined 5-year mortality among a national US sample of Medicare-enrolled autistic (n=3,308) and non-autistic (n=33,080) adults aged 65 or older. Results: Autistic older adults had 2.87 times greater rate of mortality (95% CI=2.61-3.07) than non-autistic older adults. Among decedents (39.6% of autistic and 15.1% of non-autistic older adults), the median age of death was 72 years (IQR=69-78) for autistic and 75 years (IQR=70-83) for non-autistic older adults. Among autistic older adults, those with intellectual disability had 1.57 times greater rate of mortality (95% CI=1.41-1.76) than those without, and males had 1.27 times greater rate of mortality (95% CI=1.12-1.43) than females. Conclusions: Many trends regarding mortality observed in younger samples of autistic people were also observed in our study. However, we found only a three-year difference in median age at death between autistic and non-autistic decedents, which is a much smaller disparity than reported in some other studies. This potentially suggests that when autistic people live to the age of 65, they may live to a more similar age as non-autistic peers.
Study authors in this cited reference