ADHD Awareness Month

October is ADHD Awareness Month in Canada

Read the whole Carousel.

When systems don’t understand ADHD, the costs show up in health, housing, work, relationships, and the justice system. This carousel highlights what some of the research tells us about those gaps.

These outcomes raise urgent questions for Canada about timely healthcare, supportive workplaces, and access to meaningful support.

These findings also need careful interpretation. The life-expectancy figures are modelled group estimates from UK primary-care records of people with diagnosed ADHD, and they don’t show what caused the gap. The homelessness estimate comes from a preprint that hasn’t yet been peer reviewed. Estimates of ADHD prevalence in prisons vary across analyses.

What is clear is that Canada isn’t addressing serious system inequities, and the research needs strengthening. We have no national ADHD strategy and little recognition of how systems shape outcomes. Medication and self-management matter, but they’re too often treated as the whole answer, while other supports and system change go unaddressed.

NCF brings neurodivergent adults and system partners together to turn evidence and lived experience into practical change across healthcare, employment, leadership, and legal access. As we grow, we’ll push for research shaped by lived experience and partnership, and for the coordinated national approach ADHDers deserve.

Full references on the last slide.