Sex-specific associations of autism spectrum disorder with residential air pollution exposure in a large Southern California pregnancy cohort.

Sex-specific associations of autism spectrum disorder with residential air pollution exposure in a large Southern California pregnancy cohort. Environ Pollut. 2019 Nov;254(Pt A):113010 Authors: Jo H, Eckel SP, Wang X, Chen JC, Cockburn M, Martinez MP, Chow T, Molshatzki N, Lurmann FW, Funk WE, Xiang AH, McConnell R Abstract Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects more boys than girls. Recent animal studies found that early life exposure to ambient particles caused autism-like behaviors only in males. However, there has been little study of sex-specificity of effects on ASD in humans. We evaluated ASD risk associated with prenatal and first year of life exposures to particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) by child sex. This retrospective cohort study included 246,420 singleton children born in Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) hospitals between 1999 and 2009. The cohort was followed from birth through age five to identify 2471 ASD cases from the electronic medical record. Ambient PM2.5 and other regional air pollution measurements (PM less than 10 μm, ozone, nitrogen dioxide) from regulatory air monitoring stations were interpolated to estimate exposure during each trimester and first year of life at each geocoded birth address. Hazard ratios (HRs) were estimated using Cox regression models to adjust for birth year, KPSC medical center service areas, and relevant maternal and child character...
Source: Environmental Pollution - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Environ Pollut Source Type: research