Study of nearly 22,000 U.S. children reports associations between COVID-19 vaccination and several health outcomes, but researchers acknowledge the analysis cannot establish causation
A newly released analysis of federal health survey data is raising questions about COVID-19 vaccination in children after researchers reported higher odds of autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and several other conditions among children who had received COVID-19 vaccines.
The study, titled “Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in COVID-19-Vaccinated Versus Unvaccinated U.S. Children: Analysis of the National Health Interview Survey, 2022–2024,” examined data from 21,990 children whose COVID-19 vaccination status was available. The analysis was posted Oct. 5 on Zenodo, an open-access research repository.
Researchers used data from the National Health Interview Survey, a federal survey used to collect information about the health of the civilian U.S. population.
According to the authors, children who had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine had higher adjusted odds of several reported diagnoses or services compared with children who had not received a COVID-19 vaccine.
The researchers reported associations corresponding to a 32% increase in the odds of an autism diagnosis, 33% for ADHD, 23% for any neurodevelopmental disorder, 19% for special education services, 24% for asthma and 27% for anxiety disorders. They also reported higher odds of mental-health medication use and mental-health therapy.
The analysis also reported what researchers described as a dose-response pattern for autism.
Compared with children who had received no COVID-19 vaccine, the reported odds of current autism increased as the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses increased. Among children ages 5 to 7 who had received three or more doses, researchers reported 154% higher adjusted odds of current autism.
Nicolas Hulscher, an epidemiologist and one of the study’s authors, told The Gateway Pundit that researchers found a consistent association across several statistical approaches.
Hulscher said the findings should be treated as a potential safety signal and called for COVID-19 vaccination of children to stop while the issue is investigated further. The Gateway Pundit
The findings, however, come with an important limitation.
The study is cross-sectional, meaning researchers examined vaccination status and reported health conditions at a particular period rather than following children prospectively over time. The authors acknowledge that the National Health Interview Survey does not provide the exact timing of diagnoses needed to establish that vaccination occurred before a particular condition developed.
As a result, the analysis cannot establish that COVID-19 vaccination caused autism, ADHD or the other conditions identified in the study. Association alone does not demonstrate causation.
Researchers also noted that the federal survey does not contain complete information about each child’s routine vaccination history. Children categorized as “unvaccinated” in the analysis were specifically unvaccinated against COVID-19, not necessarily unvaccinated against childhood diseases generally.
Those limitations leave several possible explanations that would require additional research, including differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, other medical exposures and the possibility of residual confounding.
The authors said a stronger follow-up would involve a large birth-cohort study beginning before age 3 that links complete vaccination records with longitudinal medical records and clinically validated neurodevelopmental diagnoses.
The new analysis is likely to intensify an already contentious debate over COVID-19 policies involving children.
For parents, physicians and public-health officials, however, the central scientific question remains unresolved: Does COVID-19 vaccination contribute to the increased rates observed in the analysis, or are other differences between the populations responsible for the association?
The study does not answer that question.
What it does provide is a statistical signal involving nearly 22,000 children that the researchers argue warrants additional investigation — particularly because the reported association increased with the number of COVID-19 doses in some age groups.
Determining whether that signal represents a causal relationship will require stronger longitudinal research capable of establishing when vaccination occurred, when diagnoses were made and what other factors could have influenced the children’s health outcomes.
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