{"id":45532,"date":"2012-03-21T12:44:23","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T17:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=45532"},"modified":"2013-11-08T04:46:49","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:46:49","slug":"the-rise-of-autism-social-contagion-or-environmental-causation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/03\/21\/the-rise-of-autism-social-contagion-or-environmental-causation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Autism: Social Contagion or Environmental Causation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Autism appears to be on the rise. The\u00a0U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that there are 20 times more cases of autism today than there were in the 1980s. \u00a0This figure, from\u00a0the\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/autism\/la-me-autism-day-one-html,0,1218038.htmlstory\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/em>, shows a 200% increase in California:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/03\/18.png\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-45548\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/03\/18.png\" width=\"367\" height=\"409\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The rise in cases of autism led scientists to ask whether there was an actual increase in incidence or if we were just getting better at identifying it. \u00a0The evidence seems to suggest that it&#8217;s (at least mostly) the latter. \u00a0Said anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker:\u00a0\u201cOnce we are primed to see something, we see it and wonder how we could have never seen it before.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But how to explain disparities like this?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/03\/map.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/03\/map.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"446\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Often regional differences in health and mental health can be traced to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/04\/18\/race-and-toxic-release-facilities\/\">heavier environmental toxin loads<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0In most of those cases, though, clusters of illness occur in poor and often\u00a0disproportionately\u00a0non-white neighborhoods. \u00a0Autism clusters were happening in class-privileged places.<\/p>\n<p>Sociologist\u00a0Peter Bearman discovered that these clusters were the result of conversation. \u00a0Class-privileged parents had the resources to get their child diagnosed, then they talked to other parents. \u00a0Some of these parents would recognize the symptoms and take their child to the doctor and&#8230; voila&#8230; a cluster. \u00a0&#8220;Living within 250 meters [of a child diagnosed with autism], reports the <em>Los Angeles Times<\/em>, boosted the chances by 42%, compared to living between 500 and 1,000 meters away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Autism appears to be on the rise. The\u00a0U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that there are 20 times more cases of autism today than there were in the 1980s. \u00a0This figure, from\u00a0the\u00a0Los Angeles Times, shows a 200% increase in California: The rise in cases of autism led scientists to ask whether there was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,252,273,8080],"class_list":["post-45532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-healthmedicine","tag-mental-illness","tag-housingresidential-segregation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45532"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58434,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45532\/revisions\/58434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}