Validity of childhood autism in the Danish Psychiatric Central Register: findings from a cohort sample born 1990-1999.

Researchers checked if the Danish Psychiatric Central Register gets autism right.

They pulled 499 kids born 1990-1999 who had a registry code for childhood autism.

A doctor then read each child’s full medical chart to see if the code matched true autism.

The register was right 94% of the time.

Only six out of every hundred cases were labeled wrong.

This means the Danish file is safe for big autism studies.

Mouridsen et al. (2008) used the same Danish file to show that autistic adults die nearly twice as often as other adults.

Bailey et al. (2010) gives us trust in that scary number, because the file is 94% accurate.

Hwang et al. (2019) found the same doubled death rate in Australia, so the risk is not just a Danish quirk.

Lecavalier et al. (2009) also tested DSM-IV labels in autistic kids and found the labels held up, matching the positive verdict here.

You can lean on Danish register studies when you talk to families about long-term health risks.

If you work with adults who have autism, push for full medical follow-ups; the doubled mortality risk is real, not a data glitch.

When you read new epidemiology, check if it used this register—if it did, the findings are likely solid.