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. 2021 Jan 29;18(3):1204. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18031204

Table 4.

Studies investigating the association between exposure to SO2 and ASD development.

Authors and Year Study Design Sample Size/Country ASD Outcome Assessment Exposure Assessment Method of Analysis Adjustment Variables Time Window of Exposure Main Findings
Ritz et al., 2018
[26]
Case-control 15,387 ASD cases and 68,139 controls from Denmark ASD diagnosis according to International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) Exposures estimates provided by the dispersion models (AirGIS) for the detected pollutants (NO2, SO2, PM2.5 and PM10) in relation to the maternal residence during the examined periods Conditional logistic regression -parental age
-neighborhood
-socio-economic indicators
-maternal smoking
-pregnancy
-9 months after pregnancy
The authors estimated an OR of 1.21 (95%CI: 1.13, 1.29) for ASD onset per each increase of 2.8 μg/m3 SO2 in IQR value, 9 months after pregnancy
Yousefian et al., 2018
[36]
Case-Control 134 ASD cases and 388 controls from Tehran, Iran The diagnosis of ASD was based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-R) Land-use regression models were used to estimate their annual mean exposure to ambient PM10 Logistic regression -maternal age at birth
-maternal education
-paternal education
-cousin marriage
-maternal smoking during pregnancy
-birth order
-gestational age (weeks)
-multiple births
-maternal disease
-paternal disease
-pregnancy No significant association between SO2 and ASD
Jung et al., 2013
[39]
Case-Control 49,073 children from Taiwan ASD diagnosis according to International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM). Inverse distance weighting method was used to form exposure parameter for PM10 Cox proportional hazards (PH) model -age
-anxiety
-gender
-intellectual disabilities
-preterm
-SES
-postnatal The researchers highlighted a 17% increased risk for ASD per each increase of 1 ppb in SO2 levels (95%CI 1.09–1.27)