April 21, 2014

Dr. Brian Lee, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the School of Public Health, coauthored an article entitled “Parental age and the risk of autism spectrum disorders: findings from a Swedish population-based cohort,” in the International Journal of Epidemiology with colleagues from Sweden and the UK.

The objectives of the study discussed in this article were to examine the independent and dependent associations of maternal and paternal age and risk of offspring autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with and without intellectual disability (ID).

The results in this study confirmed prior findings that advancing parental age increases risk of ASD, particularly for ASD with ID, in a manner dependent on co-parental age. Although recent attention has emphasized the effects of increasing paternal age on ASD risk, the study found that effects of increasing maternal age on risk appear relatively larger and warrant investigation into potential contributing mechanisms.