29404
Early Life Air Pollution Exposure and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Findings from the Study to Explore Early Development

Poster Presentation
Thursday, May 2, 2019: 11:30 AM-1:30 PM
Room: 710 (Palais des congres de Montreal)
L. McGuinn1, G. C. Windham2, A. Kalkbrenner3, C. Bradley4, Q. Di5, L. A. Croen6, M. D. Fallin7, C. Ladd-Acosta7, A. Rappold8, L. Neas8, L. Schieve9 and J. Daniels10, (1)Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, (2)Environmental Health Investigations Branch, California Department of Public Health, Richmond, CA, (3)University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, (4)Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, (5)Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, (6)Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA, (7)Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, (8)Environmental Public Health Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chapel Hill, NC, (9)Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, (10)University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Background: Epidemiologic studies have reported associations between prenatal and early postnatal air pollution exposure and autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, findings differ by pollutant and developmental window.

Objectives: We examined associations between early life exposure to PM2.5 and ozone in association with ASD across multiple U.S. regions.

Methods: Our study participants included 674 children with confirmed ASD and 855 population controls from the Study to Explore Early Development, a multi-site case-control study of children born from 2003 to 2006 in the United States. We used a satellite-based model to assign air pollutant exposure averages during several critical periods of neurodevelopment: three months before pregnancy; each trimester of pregnancy; the entire pregnancy; and the first year of life. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusting for study site, maternal age, maternal education, maternal race/ethnicity, maternal smoking, and month and year of birth.

Results: The air pollution-ASD associations appeared to vary by exposure time period. Ozone exposure during the third trimester was associated with ASD, with an OR of 1.22 (95% CI:1.05, 1.42) per 6.6 ppb increase in ozone. We additionally observed a positive association with PM2.5 exposure during the first year of life [OR = 1.26 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.57) per 1.6 µg/m3 increase in PM2.5].

Conclusions: Our study corroborates previous findings of a positive association between early life air pollution exposure and ASD, and identifies a potential critical window of exposure during the late prenatal and early postnatal periods.

See more of: Epidemiology/population studies
See more of: Epidemiology/Population Studies