People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder face a substantially higher risk of dying young than people without it, according to a large review published in JAMA Network Open — but the same analysis suggests that medication for the condition is linked to a lower risk of death.
Researchers from institutions across the United Kingdom pooled 19 existing studies published between 2012 and 2025, drawing on populations in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Finland and Denmark. Together, the studies span more than 15.9 million participants, a sample size rarely reached in a single piece of research; data from 12 of them were combined to calculate hazard ratios for death among people with and without ADHD.
A 70% Higher Hazard, and a Possible Offset
People with ADHD had a 70% higher hazard of death from any cause than people without the condition, the review found. The risk of death by suicide was 90% higher, the risk of death from unintentional or intentional injury was 50% higher, and the risk of death from natural causes was 30% higher — a finding that an earlier, smaller review had not picked up, which the authors suggest may reflect the inclusion of more recent studies. ADHD affects an estimated 5% of children and 2.5% of adults, according to the review.
The more encouraging finding: prescription medication for ADHD — typically stimulants such as methylphenidate — was associated with a lower risk of death from any cause among people with the condition, though the review did not break the effect down by specific drug. As with the mortality figures themselves, the result is an association, not proof that medication causes the lower risk, and the studies varied widely by country, healthcare system and era, which the authors say should temper how the findings are applied to any one person.
"Pooled estimates should be interpreted as average associations across diverse populations and study contexts rather than as being universally applicable," the review's authors wrote, as reported by ScienceAlert. They concluded that "there are multiple factors that may increase risk for mortality outcomes in people with ADHD, reinforcing the importance of support for managing health risks in this population and attention to addressing structural determinants of poor health disproportionately experienced by people with ADHD."
The authors note the review cannot establish cause and effect in either direction: it cannot prove ADHD itself drives the higher mortality figures, nor that medication alone explains the lower risk seen among treated patients. Differences in how countries diagnose and manage ADHD, and in the gender balance of the populations studied, may also account for some of the variation between the individual studies pooled in the analysis.