Burden of disease due to transportation noise in the Nordic countries

Health position paper and redox perspectives - Disease burden by transportation noise

“…Updated knowledge of the causal association between noise and various health outcomes from high-quality studies is an important pillar in health impact assessment. Only a limited number of studies have estimated the disease burden due to environmental noise [ [174] , [175] , [176] , [177] , [178] , [179] , [180] ], and these studies often differ in methodological aspects, which makes comparison across areas and studies difficult. To estimate DALYs, several input parameters are required.…”

“…A recent BoD study in the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, aimed at using a harmonized approach and comparable input data to estimate DALYs attributable to road traffic and railway noise [ 179 ]. This study also addressed the influence of methodological choices in the estimation of BoD.…”

“…Recently, the EU evaluated that approximately 20 % of the population was exposed to transportation noise levels exceeding 55 dB, which is very likely underestimated as the EU mainly estimates noise exposure in larger urban agglomerations. Due to this sizeable number of people exposed to high noise levels, recent calculations have shown that transportation noise contributes considerably to the environmental burden of disease [ 179 ]. Importantly, the calculated "burden of disease” will increase substantially if the emerging research on noise and major diseases, such as dementia, breast cancer, and depression, are confirmed in future studies.…”

“…Railway noise was not associated with tinnitus. Aasvang et al, 2023 [ 179 ] Burden of disease The burden of disease due to road traffic and railway noise was estimated in terms of Disability-adjusted Life years (DALYs) for the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and their capital cities. The estimations were based on noise exposure data from the European Environmental Noise Directive (END) in addition to nationwide noise models which were available for Denmark and Norway.…”

Disability weights for environmental noise-related health states: results of a disability weights measurement study in Europe

“…[21][22][23][24][25][26] Furthermore, several DALYcalculation studies have shown that YLDs due to noise annoyance and sleep disturbance accounted for the majority of the total DALYs attributable to environmental noise. [27][28][29][30][31][32] Most of these DALY-calculation studies have however discussed that the DALY uncertainty range related to noise annoyance and sleep disturbance is primarily due to variations in available disability weights as well as to the diverse methodological design choices used in their derivation. This highlights the need to derive disability weights for noise-related health states, such as noise annoyance and sleep disturbance, using standardised methods; thus, allowing for the comparability of noise-related DALY estimates with those associated with other health outcomes.…”