The economic costs and its predictors for childhood autism spectrum disorders in Ireland: How is the burden distributed?

The objective of this study is to estimate the societal cost of childhood autism spectrum disorders and explain the variation in costs between state and family out-of-pocket expenditure. A bottom-up prevalence based cost-of-illness methodology was implemented using data from a combination of multiple convenience samples in Ireland of 195 parents of 222 children aged between 2 and 18 years of age with a clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder collected in 2014/2015.

The findings show the average annual cost per child for families amounted to €28,464.89 related to private autism spectrum disorder services, lost income and informal care. By comparison, annual state expenditure per child on autism spectrum disorder–related health, social and educational resources was €14,192. Regression analyses indicate that autism spectrum disorder severity is significantly associated with higher out of pocket expenditures but not state health expenditures.