VACCINE

PLoS One • April 2012
The co-morbidity burden of children and young adults
with autism spectrum disorders
Author information
Kohane IS1, McMurry A, Weber G, MacFadden D,
Rappaport L, Kunkel L, Bickel J, Wattanasin N, Spence S, Murphy S, Churchill S.
1Center for Biomedical Informatics
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Isaac_kohane@harvard.edu
Abstract
OBJECTIVES
Use electronic health records Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to assess the comorbidity burden of
ASD in children and young adults.
STUDY DESIGN
A retrospective prevalence study was performed using a distributed query system across three general
hospitals and one pediatric hospital. Over 14,000 individuals under age 35 with ASD were characterized
by their co-morbidities and conversely, the prevalence of ASD within these comorbidities was
measured. The comorbidity prevalence of the younger (Age