Abstract
Autistic adults experience disparities in physical health and health care access. A major barrier to addressing these disparities is a lack of federal funding for research on this topic. In seeking funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we discovered nodes that contribute to structural discrimination in physical health–related research for autistic adults. To examine this structural discrimination, we systematically searched funded research on all physical health–disparity conditions in autistic adults using NIH RePORTER. Among 61 unique studies, none focused on improving the relevant physical health condition through intervention, programs, or services for autistic adults. Thus, we need updated policies and procedures that support research on physical health disparities in populations with developmental or mental health conditions.
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All data are included in the manuscript. Raw data files may be available by request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Nancy Cheak-Zamora and Colleen F. Moore for their critical review of an early form of this research. We also thank Crystal R. Herron for editorial support.
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This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K12HL137943 and the New York University Program to Increase Diversity in Behavioral Medicine & Sleep Disorders, U.S.A. (PRIDE; R25HL105444-9). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or PRIDE.
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T.A.M.M supervised the project. T.A.M.M. and A.S. were involved with all aspects of manuscript preparation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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McDonald, T.A.M., Scudder, A. Mind the NIH-Funding Gap: Structural Discrimination in Physical Health–Related Research for Cognitively Able Autistic Adults. J Autism Dev Disord 54, 1411–1424 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05856-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05856-w