Autism is today’s hot topic in the middle of medicine and society, sparking conversations on everything from parents and public health to new theories of social interaction and technological innovation. But how did this once-obscure condition become an “epidemic”?

Gil Eyal answers this question by tracing the social history of autism, arguing that we can learn more about why it is common today by asking why it used to be rare. His work highlights three key changes in the mental health system. First, treatment for autism shifted from clinics and institutions to special education at home and in the community. Second, specialists stopped looking for complete “bundles” of symptoms to diagnose autism, turning instead to a checklist of individual behaviors, identified by parents and falling across a wide spectrum. Finally, these changes in practice taught parents and doctors to look for progress in small steps through treatment, rather than a complete “cure” for autism; it is now seen as a lifelong condition.

Eyal argues that these changes didn’t create new knowledge or skills among the experts, but instead made a new kind of autism expertise by changing the social relationships among parents, therapists, researchers, and activists. Now parents are encouraged to actively participate in the diagnosis and treatment of their children, with their observations taken more seriously by doctors. Thus, autism diagnoses have been supported by a broader social network and increased over time, while other conditions that required specific clinical treatments without the parents—like childhood schizophrenia—have decreased. While autism now occurs more frequently, at least part of the epidemic lies in the way our society sees mental health.

In the wake of the great recession, have voters demand stronger government protections to keep from going under? Not really. Support for government policies trying to reduce economic pain actually dropped from 2008 to 2010. Political scientists tend to think voters are smart about one key issue—their own economic needs—but Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza suspect other social effects may be behind some odd voter behavior.

In their recent American Sociological Review article, the authors use new data from the General Social Survey to argue that it wasn’t economic interests, but partisanship most significantly affected public opinion during the recession. According to the authors:

Attitudes of the U.S. public as a whole moved toward lower levels of government support, but not because all citizens experienced the same trends and reasoned in the same way. Instead, individuals who more strongly identified with the Republican Party moved away from government faster than Democratic Party identifiers moved toward government.

While voters may respond to the current economic situation, they clearly don’t agree on what that reality means. Instead, belonging to political parties has trained them to see the world through different lenses. Those on the left seem to believe government should provide direct help to struggling citizens, while those on the right seem to think less government involvement in the private sector will spur development and improve the economy for anyone with the will to rise to the top.

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