Childhood Autism and Air Pollution - A Statewide Study

 描述(由申请人提供)：专家们一致认为，基因和环境因素都有助于自闭症的发展，最近的研究表明，环境因素的作用令人惊讶地强大。然而，尽管公众非常关注环境影响，但哪些因素可能起到重要作用仍然难以捉摸。最近，环境空气污染日益引起人们对自闭症产前和早期发展的关注，极少数且主要是小型研究的积极关联的令人震惊的报告。我们自己最近对洛杉矶7000名自闭症儿童进行的初步研究表明，出生前接触交通工具会增加风险，尽管风险比之前的研究报告的要小得多(5)。综上所述，之前主要是小规模研究的结果提出了一个重要的公共卫生问题，以及在脆弱的发育期进行大规模人口调查和最先进的空气污染暴露评估的必要性，以解决空气污染是否以及哪种类型的空气污染对自闭症构成风险的问题。如果这些结果在精心设计的大规模研究中得到证实，这将对保护胎儿和空气污染法规产生关键影响。这份提案及时有效地解决了这一问题。在这里，我们建议彻底检查以下假设：在怀孕前后、子宫内和生命第一年的易受污染时期暴露于空气污染会增加儿童患自闭症的风险。我们建议使用高度复杂的建模和分析技术对空气污染进行详细的空间和时间评估，该评估由我们的团队开发、验证和建立。我们建议第一次使用全州范围的自闭症病例(35,000例)和对照(比率为1：10)的出生人口队列来检查脆弱时期的这些暴露。加州(CA)是研究自闭症潜在环境因素的绝佳地点。CA部门。发展服务部运营着一个全州范围的系统，协调为自闭症儿童提供的服务并维护电子记录。此外，加州是全国空气污染水平最高的州之一，拥有密集的空气污染监测网络。因此，这项提案的目标是利用高度尖端的科学状况空气污染暴露评估和尖端分析方法，首次以加州全州人口为基础，以可靠和可理解的方式探索空气污染在易感发育期可能产生的影响和自闭症风险。这将有助于阐明这种无处不在的环境暴露是否会增加儿童患自闭症的风险。如果这种联系在这项大规模的高质量研究中被证明存在，它将为预防性环境政策提供必要的证据，以保护发展中的儿童，从而为以人口为基础的自闭症预防提供独特的机会。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Experts agree that both genes and environmental factors contribute to development of autism with recent research suggesting a surprisingly strong role for environmental factors. However, which factors may play important roles remains elusive even though the public is very concerned about environmental influences. Ambient air pollution has recently been of growing concern for the prenatal and early life development of autism with alarming reports of positive associations from very few and mainly small studies. Our own recent pilot study of ~7,000 autistic children in LA, suggested increases in risk related to prenatal exposure to traffic albeit risks were much smaller in size than reported in previous studies (5). Taken together, findings from previous mostly small-scale studies raise an important public health issue and the necessity to conduct a large- scale population based investigation with state-of-the-science air pollution exposure assessment during vulnerable developmental periods to address the question whether and what type of air pollution poses a risk for autism. Should these results be confirmed in well-designed and large-scale studies, this would have critical implications for the protection of the fetus and for air pollution regulations. This propoal addresses this question in a timely and efficient manner. Here, we propose to thoroughly examine hypotheses that exposure to air pollution during vulnerable periods around conception, in utero, and in the first year of life increases risks of autism in children. We propose to use highly sophisticated modeling and analytical techniques for the detailed spatial and temporal assessment of air pollution, developed, validated, and established by our group. We propose to examine these exposures during vulnerable periods using for the first time, a statewide population based birth cohort of autistic disorder cases (>35,000) and controls (ratio 1:10). California (CA) is an excellent location for studying potential environmental contributions to autism. The CA Dept. of Developmental Services operates a statewide system that coordinates services for children with autism and maintains electronic records. Further, the state of CA has among the highest levels of air pollution in the nation and a dense air pollution monitoring network. The goal of this proposal is thus to explore - for the first time - reliably and comprehensibly possible effects of air pollution during susceptible developmental periods and the risk of autism based on a statewide population in CA, using highly sophisticated state-of-the-science air pollution exposure assessment and cutting edge analytical approaches. This will help to elucidate whether or not, this ubiquitous environmental exposure contributes to the risk of autism in children. Should this association be shown to exist in this large-scale high quality study, it would provide the necessary evidence for preventive environmental policies to protect the developing child and thus provide a unique opportunity for population based prevention of autism.