Background: Prenatal exposure to air pollutants has been suggested as a possible etiologic factor for the occurrence of autism spectrum disorder.
Objectives: We aimed to assess whether prenatal air pollution exposure is associated with childhood autistic traits in the general population.
Methods: Ours was a collaborative study of four European population-based birth/child cohorts—CATSS (Sweden), Generation R (the Netherlands), GASPII (Italy), and INMA (Spain). Nitrogen oxides (NO2, NOx) and particulate matter (PM) with diameters of ≤ 2.5 μm (PM2.5), ≤ 10 μm (PM10), and between 2.5 and 10 μm (PMcoarse), and PM2.5 absorbance were estimated for birth addresses by land-use regression models based on monitoring campaigns performed between 2008 and 2011. Levels were extrapolated back in time to exact pregnancy periods. We quantitatively assessed autistic traits when the child was between 4 and 10 years of age. Children were classified with autistic traits within the borderline/clinical range and within the clinical range using validated cut-offs. Adjusted cohort-specific effect estimates were combined using random-effects meta-analysis.
Results: A total of 8,079 children were included. Prenatal air pollution exposure was not associated with autistic traits within the borderline/clinical range (odds ratio = 0.94; 95% CI: 0.81, 1.10 per each 10-μg/m3 increase in NO2 pregnancy levels). Similar results were observed in the different cohorts, for the other pollutants, and in assessments of children with autistic traits within the clinical range or children with autistic traits as a quantitative score.
Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to NO2 and PM was not associated with autistic traits in children from 4 to 10 years of age in four European population-based birth/child cohort studies.
1Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain; 2Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain; 3Spanish Consortium for Research on Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain; 4Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus University Medical Centre–Sophia Children’s Hospital, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; 5The Generation R Study, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; 6Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 7Department of Epidemiology Lazio Regional Health Service, Rome Italy; 8Team of Environmental Epidemiology Applied to Reproduction and Respiratory Health, Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) (U823), Grenoble, France; 9University Grenoble-Alpes, Institut Albert Bonniot, Grenoble, France; 10Psychobiology area, Department of Basic Psychological Processes and Their Development, Faculty of Psychology, University of The Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain; 11Health Research Institute BIODONOSTIA, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain; 12Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; 13Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London, UK; 14Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research in the Valencian Region, University of Valencia–University Jaume I Joint Research Unit of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Valencia, Spain; 15Department of Genes and Environment, Division of Epidemiology, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; 16Sub-Directorate of Public Health of Gipukzoa, Department of Health, Government of Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain; 17Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus University Medical Centre–Sophia Children’s Hospital, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; 18Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; 19Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 20Department of Medicine, University Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain; 21Department of Psychiatry, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; 22Department of Preventive Medicine, and 23Department of Pediatrics, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA; 24Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA; 25Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands; 26Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain
Recommended Citation:
Mònica Guxens,1,2,et al. Air Pollution Exposure during Pregnancy and Childhood Autistic Traits in Four European Population-Based Cohort Studies: The ESCAPE Project[J]. Environmental Health Perspectives,2016-01-01,Volume 124(Issue 1):133