scholarly journals Burden of Disease Due to Traffic Noise in Germany

Author(s):  
Tobollik ◽  
Hintzsche ◽  
Wothge ◽  
Myck ◽  
Plass

Traffic noise is nearly ubiquitous and thus can affect the health of many people. Using the German noise mapping data according to the Directive 2002/49/EC of 2017 and exposure-response functions for ischemic heart disease, noise annoyance and sleep disturbance assessed by the World Health Organization’s Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region the burden of disease due to traffic noise is quantified. The burden of disease is expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and its components. The highest burden was found for road traffic noise, with 75,896 DALYs when only considering moderate evidence. When including all available evidence, 176,888 DALYs can be attributable to road traffic noise. The burden due to aircraft and railway noise is lower because fewer people are exposed. Comparing the burden by health outcomes, the biggest share is due to ischemic heart disease (90%) in regard to aircraft noise, however, the lowest evidence was expressed for the association between traffic noise and ischemic heart disease. Therefore, the results should be interpreted with caution. Using alternative input parameters (e.g., exposure data) can lead to a much higher burden. Nevertheless, environmental noise is an important risk factor which leads to considerable loss of healthy life years.

2015 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angel M. Dzhambov ◽  
Donka D. Dimitrova

Abstract Road traffic noise is a widely studied environmental risk factor for ischaemic heart disease and myocardial infarction in particular. Given that myocardial infarction is a leading disability and mortality cause in Bulgaria and that a significant proportion of the urban population is exposed to high noise levels, quantification of the burden of disease attributable to traffic noise is essential for environmental health policy making and noise control engineering. This study aimed at estimating the burden of the myocardial infarction cases attributable to road traffic noise in the Bulgarian urban population. We used the methodology for estimating the burden of disease attributable to environmental noise outlined by the World Health Organization. Risk data were extracted from a recently published meta-analysis providing updated exposureresponse relationship between traffic noise and the risk for myocardial infarction. Based on these data we calculated the fraction of myocardial infarction cases attributable to traffic noise, loss of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and the economic burden, assuming € 12,000 per QALY. About 2.9 % or 101 of all myocardial infarction cases could be attributed to road traffic noise. Fifty-five of these were fatal. Nine hundred and sixty-eight QALYs were lost to these cases. The monetary value of these QALYs was about € 11.6 million. Although the measures used in this study are crude and give only an approximation of the real burden of disease from road traffic noise, they are indicative of the important social and economic aspect of noise pollution in Bulgaria. Hopefully, these results will direct the attention of epidemiologists, environmental hygienists, and health economists to this pivotal environmental issue.


Author(s):  
Janice Hegewald ◽  
Melanie Schubert ◽  
Matthias Lochmann ◽  
Andreas Seidler

Road-traffic-noise exposition is widespread in Germany and can have harmful health effects. As guidance for informed decision-making, we estimated the environmental burden of disease attributable to road-traffic noise in Hesse, Germany as disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). Using detailed road-traffic-noise exposure data provided by the Hessian Agency for Nature Conservation, Environment, and Geology (HLNUG), we calculated the DALYs due to road-traffic noise > 40 dB(A) L24h (unweighted average 24 h noise level) and other noise metrics for endpoints with known dose-response functions and evidence in the literature (NORAH-study on disease risks and WHO reviews): cardiovascular disease, depressive disorders, road-traffic annoyance, and sleep disturbance. We calculated the population-attributable fractions (PAF) for road-noise-related cardiovascular disease (hypertensive heart disease, ischemic heart disease, and stroke) and depressive disorders in the population using published relative risk estimates. We multiplied the PAFs with the Hessian proportion of the 2015 WHO DALY estimates for Germany in people aged ≥ 40 years. For high annoyance and high sleep disturbance, we used published dose-response functions to determine the burden for residents of all ages. For Hesse, we found a total of 26,501 DALYs attributable to road-traffic noise or 435 DALY per 100,000 persons for the reference year, 2015. Further, we estimated that a hypothetic uniform road-traffic-noise reduction of 3 dB would prevent 23% of this burden of disease.


Stroke ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (Suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Talha Jilani ◽  
Iryna Lobanova ◽  
Brandi R French ◽  
Farhan Siddiq ◽  
Camilo R Gomez ◽  
...  

Background: Ischemic heart disease is more prevalent than ischemic stroke in most countries, including the United States; however, recent data suggests that ischemic stroke may be more prevalent in some countries. We performed this study to identify the countries with an inverse ratio of ischemic stroke and ischemic heart disease and associated attributes. Methods: We analyzed the data using the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) website; GBD Compare tool published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Seattle, Washington for the year 2017. We categorized individual 195 countries based on the ratio of ischemic stroke/ischemic heart disease and divided them into ≥1.0, 0,5-99, and <0.5. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for each country was calculated using data from Worldometers. Results: There were 51, 125, and 19 countries with the ratio of ischemic stroke/ischemic heart disease and divided them into ≤0.5, 0.5-0.99, and ≥1.0 respectively (see Table). The range of ratio was between 0.24 and 1.86. Countries with inverse ratio included China (1.86), North Korea (1.31), Guam (1.28), Taiwan (1.20), Marshall Islands (1.15), Timor-Leste (1.16), South Korea (1.13), Seychelles (1.11), Northern Mariana Islands (1.10), Cambodia (1.09), Federated States of Micronesia (1.08), American Samoa (1.07), Samoa (1.06), Kiribati (1.04), Solomon Islands (1.03), Fiji (1.02), Indonesia (1.02), Mauritius (1.01), and Vanuatu (1.00). Conclusions: Approximately 1 out of 10 countries have an inverse ratio of ischemic stroke / ischemic heart disease incidences. The inverse ratio is predominantly driven by a lower incidence of ischemic heart disease.


Noise can be defined as an undesirable sound that pollutes the environment. If noise is continuous and exceeds certain levels, negative effects on health can be observed. In recent years, the impact of environmental noise (road traffic noise, railway traffic noise, air traffic noise and industrial noise) on human health has come under increasingly intense scrutiny. Noise can cause a number of negative effects on health that directly or indirectly affect humans. The occurrence of some certain and harmful health effects drives the onset of others and may contribute to the development of various diseases. Health is not only a state of physical well-being, but also mental well-being. Mental health primarily depends on the quality of life, which can be affected by various environmental factors, such as noise. An important aspect of fighting noise is the most effective protection of the population by avoiding sources of noise and reducing it. This can be achieved by introducing new technical solutions and new technologies, including devices that generate less noise. Another important measure is educating the society and influencing the change of individual and collective behavior, which may contribute to reducing the harmful factor, which is noise in human life, and minimize the resulting negative effects on health.


2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (3) ◽  
pp. 3282-3293
Author(s):  
Jens Forssén ◽  
Andreas Gustafson ◽  
Meta Berghauser Pont ◽  
Marie Haeger-Eugensson ◽  
Christine Achberger ◽  
...  

For a model set of 31 different building morphologies in an urban setting, road traffic noise exposure has been calculated and analysed. For five of the building morphologies also vegetation surfaces on facades and roofs were studied. Facade exposures were analysed for both smaller (single-sided) flats and larger (floor-through) flats, considering the direct exposure from the roads as well as the non-direct exposure at noise-shielded positions like inner yards, applying a noise mapping software in combination with a prediction model for the non-direct exposure. Using noise indicators Lden and Lnight, the disease burden, in terms of DALY (Disability-Adjusted Life Years) per person, was estimated and analysed, via predictions of annoyance and sleep disturbance. The resulting effects of varying the building morphology and adding vegetation are shown and discussed, including effects of a bonus model for flats having additional facade elements with lower noise exposure.


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-281
Author(s):  
Ana Henriques ◽  
Carla Araújo ◽  
Marta Viana ◽  
Olga Laszczynska ◽  
Marta Pereira ◽  
...  

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