{"doi":"10.17615/1enn-ra03","title":"Prenatal Exposure to Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances and Childhood Autism-related Outcomes","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Epidemiologic evidence linking prenatal exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) with altered neurodevelopment is inconclusive, and few large studies have focused on autism-related outcomes. We investigated whether blood concentrations of PFAS in pregnancy are associated with child autism-related outcomes. METHODS: We included 10 cohorts from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program (n = 1,429). We measured 14 PFAS analytes in maternal blood collected during pregnancy; eight analytes met detection criteria for analysis. We assessed quantitative autism-related traits in children via parent report on the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS). In multivariable linear models, we examined relationships of each PFAS (natural log-transformed) with SRS scores. We further modeled PFAS as a complex mixture using Bayesian methods and examined modification of these relationships by child sex. RESULTS: Most PFAS in maternal blood were not associated with child SRS T-scores. Perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) showed the strongest and most consistent association: each 1-unit increase in ln-transformed PFNA was associated with greater autism-related traits (adjusted β [95% confidence interval (CI)] = 1.5 [-0.1, 3.0]). The summed mixture, which included six PFAS detected in >70% of participants, was not associated with SRS T-scores (adjusted β [95% highest posterior density interval] = 0.7 [-1.4, 3.0]). We did not observe consistent evidence of sex differences. CONCLUSIONS: Prenatal blood concentrations of PFNA may be associated with modest increases in child autism-related traits. Future work should continue to examine the relationship between exposures to both legacy and emerging PFAS and additional dimensional, quantitative measures of childhood autism-related outcomes.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2024,"id":500150,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8014,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":292675,"name":"Anne L. Dunlop","orcid":"0000-0002-5092-8136","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":239774,"name":"Donghai Liang","orcid":"0000-0001-7311-2298","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":301908,"name":"Ghassan B. Hamra","orcid":"0000-0002-6921-5742","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":477311,"name":"Jennifer Ames","orcid":"0000-0003-0906-9162","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":288816,"name":"Jiwon Oh","orcid":"0000-0003-1091-444X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":337655,"name":"Pi‐I D. Lin","orcid":"0000-0003-3564-4255","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275850,"name":"Lyndsay A. Avalos","orcid":"0000-0001-8748-0614","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298305,"name":"Tracey J. Woodruff","orcid":"0000-0003-3622-1297","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1040891,"name":"Mohamad Burjak","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":504197,"name":"program collaborators for Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":232426,"name":"Rachel Morello‐Frosch","orcid":"0000-0003-1153-7287","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":322966,"name":"Yeyi Zhu","orcid":"0000-0002-7296-738X","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":635168,"name":"Catherine M. Bulka","orcid":"0000-0002-6529-7226","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":322969,"name":"Monique M. Hedderson","orcid":"0000-0003-1768-0412","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":271737,"name":"Thomas G. O’Connor","orcid":"0000-0002-8590-5057","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275581,"name":"Lisa Croen","orcid":"0000-0001-7849-9428","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":48177,"name":"MARGARET R. KARAGAS","orcid":"0000-0002-6398-7362","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":381696,"name":"Assiamira Ferrara","orcid":"0000-0002-7505-4826","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":289392,"name":"Kristen Lyall","orcid":"0000-0002-4633-0799","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298302,"name":"Amy Padula","orcid":"0000-0003-1435-4814","position":20,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":265819,"name":"Rebecca C. Fry","orcid":"0000-0003-0899-9018","position":21,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":312590,"name":"Brianna F. Moore","orcid":"0000-0002-1084-3349","position":22,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275578,"name":"Joseph M. Braun","orcid":"0000-0002-5239-3235","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:10:04.829419Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}