Aircraft noise studies reinforce links between noise pollution and health impacts

According to researchers from Britain and the United States, if you live close to an airport, you may be at a higher risk of heart disease and stroke.

City living is stressful. It's not just the crowds, the rushed pace, the chemical pollution and light pollution that take their toll on city dwellers, affecting their health and shortening their lifespan. Noise pollution has a big impact as well. The constant din of traffic, construction and other noises contribute to physical and mental health problems, either directly, or just as a result of higher stress levels, loss of sleep and hypertension.

However, two new studies, one from London, UK and one from the United States, have shown that those people who live closest to major airports may have an even greater chance of suffering a stroke or developing heart disease. The studies focused on people living near London's Heathrow airport, and on those living around 89 different airports in the United States.

Factoring in people's ethnicity, age, sex, height and weight, whether or not they smoke, their level of social interaction, as well as any sources of air pollution and other noise pollution, both studies still found that people living closest to the airport were more likely to end up in the hospital due to a stroke or due to suffering from heart disease than people living further away. What's particularly interesting is that the US study found that the noise levels with the greatest link to higher hospitalization rates, where those roughly equivalent to those you'd experience at a family dinner. However, their study did show that a 10 dB increase in noise volume worked out to around a 3.5% higher rate of hospitalizations.

Still, even with these studies, the researchers can't show a direct link to say that aircraft noise causes heart disease and stroke. The more likely conclusion to take from both of these studies is that noise pollution — no matter what the source — is the overarching problem. The louder the noise and the more you're exposed to it, the more likely you are to experience higher levels of stress and higher rates of sleep disturbance, both of which can contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease.

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Studies have shown similar health effects of noise near roads, with higher levels of stress, hypertension and sleep disturbances. Other research is looking into whether noise from wind turbines is the cause of health problems associated with 'Wind Turbine Syndrome'.

Noise pollution was recently ranked as second only to air pollution for the level of impact on our health and well being. Yet, whereas air pollution is constantly monitored and reported on in and around major cities, noise pollution is assessed for specific studies and events, but it does not get the regular monitoring that air pollution receives. There have been efforts to turn this into a citizen science project, using smartphones, but perhaps its time that environmental agencies gave the problem more attention.

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