ADHD diagnoses spiked during pandemic

About 1 in 9 children in the U.S., between the ages of 3 and 17, have been diagnosed with ADHD, a new report found (Source: “ADHD diagnoses are rising. 1 in 9 U.S. kids have gotten one, new study finds,” NPR, May 23).
 
According to the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report,  attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is an "expanding public health concern."
 
Researchers found that in 2022, 7.1 million kids and adolescents in the U.S. had received an ADHD diagnosis – a million more children than in 2016. That jump in diagnoses was not surprising, given that the data was collected during the pandemic, says Melissa Danielson, a statistician with the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities and the study's lead author.
 
She notes that other studies have found that many children experienced heightened stress, depression and anxiety during the pandemic. "A lot of those diagnoses... might have been the result of a child being assessed for a different diagnosis, something like anxiety or depression, and their clinician identifying that the child also had ADHD," Danielson says.