Best/Worst States for Autism Resources
Findings from a Stanford investigation of 28,000 autism resources in the U.S.
Overview
There are at least 28,000 services for autism spread from one shining sea to the other in the U.S. This is according to database called GapMap, created by researchers at Stanford to identify geographical gaps in resources. Those researchers did some analysis on the data they collected, and recently reported their findings.
Results
Among other things, the study provided a look at the availability of autism services by state. Here is a look at the 10 best states for autism resources (in pink), and the 10 worst (in blue).
Methods
These rankings are based on an adjusted ratio of the number of people in each state compared to the number of autism resources in that state. The researchers call this ratio the resource load (RLc). A low resource load number means the state has more resources for it’s population and is therefore better. And conversely, higher numbers are worse. (it’s a bit counter-intuitive, I know).
Discussion
With the exception of Montana, Colorado and Wisconsin, the best states are mostly clustered in the Northeast Megalopolis from Boston to D.C., where population density is high; and the worst states tend to be rural where population density is low.
This is interesting, but what is more relevant to individuals are the services that are available in one’s city or county. Some states that don’t rank high, like California for instance, may have large cities with abundant resources.
The study also found that on average, Americans are about 11 miles away from one of the 28,000 autism resources included in the GapMap database. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but consider that there are about 4,000 Wal-Marts in the United States. Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect, pointed out in his book that 90% of Americans are within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart [2]. In other words, although there are far more autism services in the U.S. than Wal-Marts, they are only somewhat more accessible because of how clustered autism services tend to be in certain regions.
For more details about the study from Stanford, see the July 2019 publication referenced below in the Journal of Medical Internet Research [1]. See also a story I wrote for KSL News about other aspects of the study here.
References
- M. Ning, et al. Identification and Quantification of Gaps in Access to Autism Resources in the United States: An Infodemiological Study. J Med Internet Res. 2019 Jul; 21(7): e13094. doi: 10.2196/13094 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6652124/
- Charles Fishman. The Wal-Mart Effect. Penguin Random House. 2006. ISBN: 9780143038788
