Autism, air pollution

Babies who are exposed to lots of traffic-related air pollution in the womb and during their first year of life are more likely to become autistic, a new study suggests.

The findings support previous research linking how close children live to freeways with their risk of autism, according to the study’s lead author.

“We’re not saying traffic pollution causes autism, but it may be a risk factor for it,” said Heather Volk, an assistant professor at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

For the new analysis, Volk and her colleagues looked at measures of air quality around children’s homes.

Compared with 245 California kids who were not autistic, the researchers found, 279 autistic children were almost twice as likely to have been exposed to the highest levels of pollution while in the womb and about three times as likely to have been exposed to that level during their first year of life.