Parent-reported prevalence of food allergies in children with autism spectrum disorder: National health interview survey, 2011-2015.
Food allergies are 2.5× more common in kids with autism, so screen every client before you write a feeding intervention.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Tan et al. (2019) asked parents across the United States one simple question: does your child have a food allergy? They used the same big government survey doctors use to track flu shots. The team compared answers for kids with autism to answers for kids without autism. They looked at five years of data so the picture would be stable.
What they found
Parents of children with autism were 2.5 times more likely to say yes. That means about 13 in every 100 kids with autism had a food allergy. Only about 5 in 100 typical kids did. The gap stayed even after the researchers checked for things like income and race.
How this fits with other research
Thomas et al. (2017) used the exact same survey and found 8.6% of kids with autism also have epilepsy. Matson et al. (2011) used it too and saw 40% have anxiety or depression. Together these papers turn the survey into a checklist: expect one food allergy, one seizure disorder, and strong worries in the same clinic day.
Mulder et al. (2020) moved the lens to adults. They showed eating disorders, not allergies, rise sharply in grown-ups with autism, especially women. The adult pattern looks different, so screening questions have to change with age.
Brito et al. (2024) add stomach trouble to the map. Their large 2024 survey found GI pain increases as children with autism get older. Food allergies in the Yuling study and gut pain in the Anita study often ride together, so ask about both before you blame behavior on 'just autism'.
Why it matters
You already watch for escape-maintained problem behavior during meals. Now you know allergic reactions can create the same escape function. Add two quick parent questions to your intake: any diagnosed food allergy and any epinephrine pen at school. If the answer is yes, pair your behavior plan with a medical protocol. Kids feel better faster and your data stay clean.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Food allergies are frequently reported to co-occur with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the prevalence of this co-occurrence remains uncertain. In the present study, we examined parent-reported prevalence of co-occurring food allergy and ASD in a nationally representative sample of US children ages 2-17 in the National Health Interview Survey, study years 2011-2015. All analyses used survey weights to account for the complex sampling design. In the analytic sample of 53,365 children ages 2-17, there were 905 children with parent-reported ASD (prevalence of 1.7%) and 2,977 children with parent-reported food allergy (prevalence of 5.6%). Parent-reported food allergies were nearly 2.5 times more common in children with ASD (prevalence of 13.1%) than in children without ASD (5.4%). These results indicate that food allergies commonly co-occur with ASD, which may have etiological implications. Autism Research 2019, 12: 802-805. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Food allergies are frequently reported to occur with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the prevalence of this co-occurrence remains uncertain. In the present study, we examined parent-reported prevalence of co-occurring food allergy and ASD in a nationally representative sample of United States children. In the sample of 53,365 children ages 2-17, 1.7% of children were reported to have ASD, and 5.6% were reported to have food allergies. Parent-reported food allergies were nearly 2.5 times more common in children with ASD (13.1%) than in children without ASD (5.4%).
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2019 · doi:10.1002/aur.2106