Study Reveals an Increase in Autism Prevalence Rates
Among Children in U.S. Metro Areas

According to a recent study published in the Jan. 1, 2003, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the prevalence rate of autism among children has increased over the past decade.

Researchers at Atlanta's Battelle Memorial Institute's Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that the prevalence rate in 1996 for autism among children ages 3 to 10 years in Atlanta was 10 times higher than the rates found in three other studies conducted in various U.S. cities …