Private equity acquired more than 500 autism centers over the past decade, new study shows

Study author Yashaswini Singh, a health economist at Brown's School of Public Health, said the work highlights how financial firms are rapidly moving into a sensitive area of health care without much public scrutiny or data on where this is happening or why.

"The big takeaway is that there is yet another segment of health care that has emerged as potentially profitable to private equity investors and it is very distinct from where we have traditionally known investors to go, so the potential for harm can be a lot more serious," Singh said. "We're also dealing with children who are largely insured by Medicaid programs, so if private equity increases the intensity of care, what we're really looking at are impacts to state Medicaid budgets down the road."

The findings of the analysis were published in JAMA Pediatrics and offer one of the first national assessments of private equity's growing role in autism therapies and services. Autism diagnoses among U.S. children have risen sharply in recent years, nearly tripling between 2011 and 2022, and the condition has been in the national spotlight amid political debate falsely linking autism to childhood vaccines.