Steven Walker
University of Essex, UK
Title: Attention deficit hyperactive disorder: A damned hard diagnosis?
Biography
Biography: Steven Walker
Abstract
Across the globe, ADHD prevalence is estimated around 5 per cent. It’s a figure that’s been rising for decades. For example, Sweden saw ADHD diagnoses among 10-year olds increase more than sevenfold from 1990 to 2007. Similar spikes have been reported from other countries, too, including Taiwan and the US, suggesting this may be a universal phenomenon. In fact, looking at dispensed ADHD medication as a proxy measure of ADHD prevalence, studies from the UK show an even steeper increase and a corresponding rise in the numbers treated: from an estimate of 0.5 per 1,000 children diagnosed 30 years ago, to more than 3 per 1,000 receiving medication for ADHD in the late 1990s. The rates in the USA have risen too, but from a much higher base; from about 12 per 1,000 30 years ago to about 35 per 1,000 in the late 1990s, with the increase continuing. However, recent studies have demonstrated an under-diagnosis among girls possibly due to their social conditioning to be less extrovert. This paper will consider the reasons for the increased prevalence rate; how easy is it to diagnose ADHD without being influenced by ‘normative social expectations’? Is there a culture of medicalising problems which are within a wide range of individual personalities and family or community cultures? And under austerity economics is there a risk that short-term fixes will be preferred to long-term structural changes in quality of family life to mitigate prevalence?