Risk Factors for Cerebral Palsy: Current Knowledge and Future Causal Inference

Details

• Personal Author:
  Day SM ; Reynolds RJ
• Description:
  This commentary is on the systematic review by McIntyre et al. on cerebral palsy. McIntyre et al. present a useful systematic review of studies of risk factors for cerebral palsy (CP) in term births. They correctly point out that CP is likely to be the result of a large number of complex causal pathways; many of these may be poorly understood or as yet unknown. The systematic review identified ten risk factors consistently associated with CP and the authors propose the development of a clearinghouse of observational and experimental data that may help researchers pinpoint causal pathways for CP. It is hoped that this may ultimately lead to more effective preventive strategies. To have the best chance at prevention, a clear understanding of the causal pathways to CP will indeed be critical. Some important questions immediately arise. Which, if any, of the risk factors identified by McIntyre et al., or which may be discovered in the future, is truly a cause of CP? Does the presence or severity of any risk factor directly change the probability of a child developing CP? Or is a given risk factor part of a causal chain, influencing other causal factors but having no direct relationship to CP? Might some risk factors be causal in both senses? Until relatively recently, there was simply no rigorous statistical framework for measuring the strength of evidence for causal relationships in medical research, much less for differentiating types of causal relationships. Today, however, a modern and rigorous theory of causality does exist, thanks to a growing body of research by Pearl et al. on the use of directed acyclic graphs, and related methods, in epidemiology. ... We are hopeful these tools will soon gain ground in the epidemiology of CP and other developmental disabilities, and that effective new preventive strategies will eventually result. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety
• Keywords:
  Children Medical Research Risk Factors Systematic Reviews
• ISSN:
  0012-1622
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 6 ; OSHA Region 9 ; Texas
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  55
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20064326
• Citation:
  Dev Med Child Neurol 2013 Jun; 55(6):490
• Contact Point Address:
  Steven M. Day, Mortality Research & Consulting, California
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• Performing Organization:
  University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:beace08121c10ec1559bcfd5d4c19f1ccc321b18c3e3db39d531a0de9e73b13cb4bc4c1d0118fcf44d50ad8bdf66058e1a9f3ef3c74e14f57b6234a773870d71
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/222817/cdc_222817_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 34.78 KB ]