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Needed: Providers Who Can Diagnose and Treat Adult ADHD

113 0
13.03.2026

Find a therapist to help with ADHD

Recent CDC data show that 6% of U.S. adults qualified for an ADHD diagnosis in the previous year.

Data published in both 2005 and 2024 place adult ADHD as the #2 adult psychiatric diagnosis in the U.S.

Despite these rates of adult ADHD, few clinicians are trained in its assessment or treatment.

We need more adult ADHD training in clinical psychiatry, clinical psychology, and related programs.

The most recent data on adult ADHD from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that for the past year, 6% of adults qualified for a diagnosis of ADHD. Lifetime diagnoses were 8%. Half of these adults were diagnosed after age 18 with 61% of these late identified cases being female.1

These numbers are on par with the roughly 6.8% worldwide prevalence of adult ADHD. Critics focus on the rising numbers but in isolation there is a lack of adequate context and reference points.2

A New Look at Adult ADHD Relative to Rates of Depression and Anxiety

In 2005, the U.S. National Comorbidity study results showed that diagnosed depression (6.7%) in the previous year was the most frequent psychiatric diagnosis in adults. The second-most frequent adult diagnosis in the previous year was ADHD at 4.1% (with 4.4% lifetime prevalence).3 Anxiety came in third (3.1%)

Sifting through more recent CDC data on adult diagnoses in the past year showed anxiety as the new most-frequent diagnosis (12.5%), with depression falling........

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