The Risk of Exposure To Pesticides on Autism Disorder: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

There are always concerns about the environmental and human consequences of the widespread use of pesticides. This study aimed to determine the role of pesticides in the development of autism spectrum disorders in children through meta-analysis. All studies (11 articles) that had the potential to be used in our study were exported in EndNote X8 software and reviewed by authors. We extracted the required data, and we used Stata software (version 12) to analyze the pooled effect. Random and fixed-effect models were used to determine the combined estimation using the “metan” command.The results showed exposure to organochlorine pesticides could increase the risk of autism by 32% (OR=1.32; 95% CI: 1.14-1.53). The first trimester of pregnancy had the highest risk for autism (OR=1.23; 95% CI: 1.15-1.31). The cumulative meta-analysis showed a decreasing trend for crude and adjusted odds ratio over time.This study showed that exposure to pesticides can increase the risk of autism, and the time of exposure to pesticides is associated with the risk of autism. These results came as the cumulative meta-analysis results for crude and adjusted odds ratios showed a decreasing trend over time.