Study shows the sound of traffic is associated with increased risk of hypertension, calls for public health measures to reduce noise exposure. If you live near a busy road you might feel like the constant sound of roaring engines, honking horns, and wailing sirens makes your blood pressure rise.
A new study published in JACC: Advances confirms that living near busy roads and being exposed to traffic noise is associated with an increased risk of hypertension. While previous studies hinted at this connection, it was unclear whether noise or air pollution was the primary factor. This research demonstrates that road traffic noise itself elevates the risk of hypertension, even after accounting for air pollution. The findings call for public health measures to reduce noise exposure.
“We were a little surprised that the association between road traffic noise and hypertension was robust even after adjustment for air pollution,” said Jing Huang, assistant professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at Peking University in Beijing, China, and lead author of the study.
Using follow-up data over a median 8.1 years, they looked at how many people developed hypertension. Not only did they find that people living near road traffic noise were more likely to develop hypertension, they also found that risk increased in tandem with the noise “dose.” The findings can support public health measures because they confirm that exposure to road traffic noise is harmful to our blood pressure, she said. Policymaking may alleviate the adverse impacts of road traffic noise as a societal effort, such as setting stricter noise guidelines and enforcement, improving road conditions and urban design, and investing advanced technology on quieter vehicles.
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