Maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with childhood autism in Jamaica

J Autism Dev Disord. 2012 Sep;42(9):1928-38. doi: 10.1007/s10803-011-1438-z.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Autistic Disorder / etiology*
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Jamaica
  • Male
  • Maternal Age*
  • Paternal Age*
  • Registries
  • Risk Factors