Maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with childhood autism in Jamaica.
Several studies have reported maternal and paternal age as risk factors for having a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), yet the results remain inconsistent. We used data for 68 age- and sex-matched case-control pairs collected from Jamaica. Using Multivariate General Linear Models (MGLM) and controlling for parity, gestational age, and parental education, we found a significant (p < 0.0001) joint effect of parental ages on having children with ASD indicating an adjusted mean paternal age difference between cases and controls of [5.9 years; 95% CI (2.6, 9.1)] and a difference for maternal age of [6.5 years; 95% CI (4.0, 8.9)]. To avoid multicollinearity in logistic regression, we recommend joint modeling of parental ages as a vector of outcome variables using MGLM.
Division of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences (EHGES), School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), Houston, TX 77030, USA. Mohammad.H.Rahbar@uth.tmc.edu
Mohammad H
MH
Rahbar
Maureen
M
Samms-Vaughan
Katherine A
KA
Loveland
Deborah A
DA
Pearson
Jan
J
Bressler
Zhongxue
Z
Chen
Manouchehr
M
Ardjomand-Hessabi
Sydonnie
S
Shakespeare-Pellington
Megan L
ML
Grove
Compton
C
Beecher
Kari
K
Bloom
Eric
E
Boerwinkle
D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007563:Jamaica; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D010331:Paternal Age; D012042:Registries; D012307:Risk Factors