The purpose of the present study was to investigate the hypothesis that women with autism have poorer health compared with men with autism, and compared with women without autism. Utilizing electronic health records drawn from a single health care system serving over 2 million individuals, 2119 adults with diagnosed autism spectrum disorders were compared with age- and sex-matched controls. When considering health care utilization, we found evidence of multiplicative risk for conditions within some domains (i.e., nutrition conditions, neurologic disease, psychiatric conditions, and sleep disorders) such that women with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experienced double jeopardy—meaning they had greater rates of health care utilization within a domain than what would separately be expected by virtue of being a woman and having ASD. For other domains (i.e., endocrine disorders, gastrointestinal disorders), the risk was additive such that being a female and having ASD were both associated with higher health care utilization, but there were no significant interaction effects. It was only with respect to one domain (cardiovascular) that rates of health care utilization were reflective of neither ASD diagnosis nor sex. Overall, our findings suggest that women with ASD are a vulnerable subgroup with high levels of health care utilization.

中文翻译：

---

患有自闭症谱系障碍的成年人的健康状况：女性和男性之间的差异


本研究的目的是调查以下假设：与患有自闭症的男性相比，以及与没有自闭症的女性相比，患有自闭症的女性的健康状况较差。利用从为超过 200 万人提供服务的单一医疗保健系统中提取的电子健康记录，将 2119 名被诊断患有自闭症谱系障碍的成年人与年龄和性别匹配的对照组进行了比较。在考虑医疗保健利用时，我们发现某些领域内的疾病（即营养状况、神经系统疾病、精神疾病和睡眠障碍）存在倍增风险的证据，使得患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的女性经历了双重危险——这意味着她们在某一领域内的医疗保健利用率高于因女性身份和患有自闭症谱系障碍而单独预期的情况。对于其他领域（即内分泌失调、胃肠道疾病），风险是累加的，因此女性和患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）都与较高的医疗保健利用率相关，但没有显着的相互作用效应。只有在一个领域（心血管），医疗保健利用率既不反映自闭症谱系障碍的诊断，也不反映性别。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，患有自闭症谱系障碍的女性是一个弱势群体，医疗保健利用率很高。