Lazzarin: Broadened Diagnostic Criteria Explains Rising ADHD and Autism Rates
Eddie Lazzarin · The Common Thread of All Technology: Monitoring the Situation, Ep.1 · Sep 27, 2025 · at 25:54
Eddie Lazzarin, CTO at a16z Crypto, explains how expanded clinical diagnostic criteria drive the apparent surge in ADHD and autism rates.
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“One of the issues is the diagnostic criteria can shift, right? As people want to Identify these cases. See very little downside in identifying them. They may broaden, right, in an effort to precisify the diagnostic criteria. They may broaden it. And I've heard that as a plausible explanation among ADHD and autism cases part of explaining the rise, right? It can be rising or it can just be that you're moving down the curve of diminishing marginal precision. And identify more and more and more cases with the hope that you can, with very little cost, treat, treat the issue. And so that, that alone can explain what appears to be an increase in prevalence.”
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