June 15, 2026

expert reaction to population-based observational study non recorded prevalence and diagnostic trends on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

An observational study published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe looks at prevalence and diagnosis trends of ADHD.

Dr Rachel Moseley, Principal Academic in Psychology, Bournemouth University, said:

“Prevalence estimation is a complex science, and the ways we study prevalence determine what we find. Efforts to measure ADHD or autistic features in the general population can be misleading: they depend on who’s willing to take part, and the measures we use to assess them (with some measures, for instance, less sensitive to neurodivergence in girls and women). This study approaches prevalence estimation in a rigorous way, through examining whether the rates of diagnosed ADHD we see in people’s medical records tallies with academic consensus on the actual prevalence of ADHD. The authors find that rates of diagnosed ADHD are considerably lower than we’d expect, and that this discrepancy is particularly great in certain groups, like older people and those assigned female at birth. 

“The study is extremely timely. The past three months have seen increased voicing of concerns around rising incidence of ADHD diagnoses, which through the lens of popular media, have been made to seem spurious, the result of people ‘incentivised’ to seek financial and practical benefits for themselves and their children, or the ‘medicalisation’ of everyday difficulties (see the UK’s Independent Review into Mental Health Conditions, Autism and ADHD: Interim Report, March 2026).

“In fact, this research corroborates a solid body of work showing that the scale of undiagnosed ADHD in the UK is substantive, especially in older age groups and women (see, for e.g., McKechnie et al., 2023; Cortese et al., 2026). We also know that failure to diagnose “milder” cases of both ADHD and autism – “milder” cases in the sense of differences being less extreme or noticeable to others – has devastating costs on the individual (French et al., 2023; Moseley et al., 2025), as well as exorbitant costs for society (for instance, in young people who are NEET, those struggling with mental health conditions and addiction: see report from the UK’S Independent ADHD Taskforce, June 2025). Through this light, rising incidence of people seeking diagnosis is likely to reflect children, teenagers and adults who are struggling to cope without accommodations and support. Diagnosis is now widely recognised to change and indeed save lives, as we see in our own work on suicide prevention, so this report is a critically important step towards recognising, rather than stigmatizing, those who are struggling. “

‘Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children and adults in England, 2000–2025: recorded prevalence and diagnostic trends in a population-based observational study using routinely collected primary care data’ by Amber John, et al. was published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe at 23:30 UK time on Monday the 15^th of June 2026. 

DOI: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2026.101740

Declared interests

Dr Rachel Moseley: ‘I have no competing interests and nothing to declare’.