Autism spectrum disorder prevalence and proximity to industrial facilities releasing arsenic, lead or mercury
Sci Total Environ. 2015 Dec 1;536:245-51. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.07.024. Epub 2015 Jul 25.
Dickerson AS1, Rahbar MH2, Han I3, Bakian AV4, Bilder DA5, Harrington RA6, Pettygrove S7, Durkin M8, Kirby RS9, Wingate MS10, Tian LH11, Zahorodny WM12, Pearson DA13, Moyé LA 3rd14, Baio J15.
1Biostatistics/Epidemiology/Research Design (BERD) Core, Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS), University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Electronic address: Aisha.S.Dickerson@uth.tmc.edu.
2Biostatistics/Epidemiology/Research Design (BERD) Core, Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS), University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Division of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences (EHGES), University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Electronic address: Mohammad.H.Rahbar@uth.tmc.edu.
3Division of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences (EHGES), University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Electronic address: Inkyu.Han@uth.tmc.edu.
4Division of Child Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, USA. Electronic address: Amanda.Bakian@hsc.utah.edu.
5Division of Child Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, USA. Electronic address: Deborah.Bilder@hsc.utah.edu.
6Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. Electronic address: rharrin5@jhu.edu.
7Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. Electronic address: sydneyp@u.arizona.edu.
8Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI 53726, USA. Electronic address: mdurkin@wisc.edu.
9Department of Community and Family Health, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA. Electronic address: rkirby@health.usf.edu.
10Department of Health Care Organization and Policy, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35205, USA.. Electronic address: mslay@uab.edu.
11National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. Electronic address: bsr4@cdc.gov.
12Department of Pediatrics, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ 07103, USA. Electronic address: zahorodn@njms.rutgers.edu.
13Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas Medical School, Houston, TX 77054, USA. Electronic address: Deborah.A.Pearson@uth.tmc.edu.
14Division of Biostatistics, University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Electronic address: Lemuel.A.Moye@uth.tmc.edu.
15National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. Electronic address: xzb1@cdc.gov.
Abstract
Prenatal and perinatal exposures to air pollutants have been shown to adversely affect birth outcomes in offspring and may contribute to prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For this ecologic study, we evaluated the association between ASD prevalence, at the census tract level, and proximity of tract centroids to the closest industrial facilities releasing arsenic, lead or mercury during the 1990s. We used 2000 to 2008 surveillance data from five sites of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) network and 2000 census data to estimate prevalence. Multi-level negative binomial regression models were used to test associations between ASD prevalence and proximity to industrial facilities in existence from 1991 to 1999 according to the US Environmental Protection Agency Toxics Release Inventory (USEPA-TRI). Data for 2489 census tracts showed that after adjustment for demographic and socio-economic area-based characteristics, ASD prevalence was higher in census tracts located in the closest 10th percentile compared of distance to those in the furthest 50th percentile (adjusted RR=1.27, 95% CI: (1.00, 1.61), P=0.049). The findings observed in this study are suggestive of the association between urban residential proximity to industrial facilities emitting air pollutants and higher ASD prevalence.
