Eric Fombonne and colleagues have an article at Vaccine titled "Beliefs in Vaccine as Causes of Autism among SPARK Cohort Caregivers." The abstract:
Background
Fear of autism has led to a decline in childhood-immunization uptake and to a resurgence of preventable infectious diseases. Identifying characteristics of parents who believe in a causal role of vaccines for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in their child may help targeting educational activities and improve adherence to the immunization schedule.
Objectives
To compare caregivers of children with ASD who agree or disagree that vaccines play an etiological role in autism for 1) socio-demographics characteristics and 2) developmental and clinical profiles of their children.
Methods
Data from 16,525 participants with ASD under age 18 were obtained from SPARK, a national research cohort started in 2016. Caregivers completed questionnaires at registration that included questions on beliefs about the etiologic role of childhood immunizations and other factors in ASD. Data were available about family socio-demographic characteristics, first symptoms of autism, developmental regression, co-occurring psychiatric disorders, seizures, and current levels of functioning.
Results
Participants with ASD were 80.4% male with a mean age of 8.1 years (SD = 4.1). Overall, 16.5% of caregivers endorsed immunizations as perceived causes of autism. Compared to caregivers who disagreed with vaccines as a cause for ASD, those who believed in vaccine causation came disproportionately from ethnic minority, less educated, and less wealthy backgrounds. More often their children had experienced developmental regression involving language and other skills, were diagnosed earlier, had lost skills during the second year of life, and had worse language, adaptive, and cognitive outcomes.
Conclusion
One in six caregivers who participate in a national research cohort believe that child immunizations could be a cause of autism in their child. Parent social background (non-White, less educated) and child developmental features (regression in second year, poorer language skills, and worse adaptive outcomes) index caregivers who are more likely to harbor these beliefs and could benefit from targeted educational activities.From the article:
Taken together, our results suggest that preemptive educational activities should preferentially target families from ethnic minority and less educated backgrounds and whose children exhibit loss of skills in the second year of life. Professionals involved in multidisciplinary specialist teams who diagnose ASD may not always have enough time to educate parents about what ASD is not caused by. Additionally, teams led by nonmedical professionals may feel less competent to talk through medical matters and may refer families to later discussions with their community providers, which may or
may not occur. Because of the recent resurgence of measles outbreaks, it is important that professionals tackle this information gap. There is a need to develop evidence-based tools for practitioners and families to facilitate this process.
