Air pollution exposure during pregnancy and childhood autistic traits in four European population-based cohort studies : the ESCAPE project

摘要

Background: Prenatal exposure to air pollutants has been suggested as a possible etiologic factorfor the occurrence of autism spectrum disorder.Objectives: We aimed to assess whether prenatal air pollution exposure is associated withchildhood 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). Nitrogenoxides (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 birthaddresses by land-use regression models based on monitoring campaigns performed between 2008and 2011. Levels were extrapolated back in time to exact pregnancy periods. We quantitativelyassessed autistic traits when the child was between 4 and 10 years of age. Children were classifiedwith autistic traits within the borderline/clinical range and within the clinical range usingvalidated cut-offs. Adjusted cohort-specific effect estimates were combined using random-effectsmeta-analysis.Results: A total of 8,079 children were included. Prenatal air pollution exposure was not associatedwith autistic traits within the borderline/clinical range (odds ratio = 0.94; 95% CI: 0.81, 1.10per each 10‑μg/m3 increase in NO2 pregnancy levels). Similar results were observed in the differentcohorts, for the other pollutants, and in assessments of children with autistic traits within theclinical range or children with autistic traits as a quantitative score.Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to NO2 and PM was not associated with autistic traits in childrenfrom 4 to 10 years of age in four European population-based birth/child cohort studies.