Impact of road traffic noise on sleep disturbances and attention disorders amongst school children living in Upper Silesian Industrial Zone, Poland

Abstract

Objectives: Published reports suggest that some adverse health impact may be related to noise exposure, and motor vehicle traffic is considered to be the main source of environmental hazard of noise. The aim of this study has been to assess an association between occurrence of sleep and attention disorders with exposure to the noise generated by motor vehicle traffic in the case of a large group of children living in an urban environment. Material and Methods: The data was obtained using a cross sectional study design in Bytom (Silesia, Poland) from 2003-2007 for a selected group of 7-14 year olds (N = 5136). The geographic information system was used for assessing the exposure to noise generated by the motor vehicle traffic. The association between occurrences of sleep disturbances or attention disorders and exposure to the traffic noise was examined by means of multivariable logistic regression. Results: Sleep disturbances and attention disorders were found to be statistically significantly associated with exposure to the traffic noise. The multivariable logistic regression results suggest that sleep disturbances and attention disorders were more likely to occur in the case of children living in the area with higher traffic density, the odds ratio (OR) = 1.44 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.05-1.97) and 1.38 (95% CI: 1.03-1.86), respectively. Conclusions: The results of the study have confirmed that the exposure to the traffic noise could be a significant risk factor for sleep disturbances and attention disorders among children. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2017;30(3):511-520

Evidence for Environmental Noise Effects on Health for the United Kingdom Policy Context: A Systematic Review of the Effects of Environmental Noise on Mental Health, Wellbeing, Quality of Life, Cancer, Dementia, Birth, Reproductive Outcomes, and Cognition

“…Another study was identified from the recent Internoise 2019 conference [52] giving a total of 34 studies for consideration. Ten studies were excluded as they did not directly measure noise [20,21,[24][25][26][27]35,37], or because no associations between noise exposure and mental health were reported in the paper [29,32] (see Appendix A.2). This left 24 studies for inclusion in the review.…”

Annoyance Judgment and Measurements of Environmental Noise: A Focus on Italian Secondary Schools

“…Road traffic and aircraft noise at school can negatively affect the performance of school-age children, disturbing children’s attention and motivation [ 11 , 12 ], reading comprehension [ 13 , 14 ], short-term memory [ 15 , 16 ], and mathematical skills [ 17 , 18 ]. Associations were found between increased hyperactivity symptomatology in children and both road traffic noise at home [ 19 , 20 ] and traffic and aircraft noise at school [ 21 , 22 ]. In addition, there is some evidence that exposure to long-term traffic noise may increase children’s blood pressure levels [ 23 , 24 ].…”

Authors’ response (July 6, 2017) to the letter to the Editor concerning the paper “Impact of road traffic noise on sleep disturbances and attention disorders amongst school children living in Upper Silesian Industrial Zone, Poland”

“…Dear Editor, First of all, we appreciate the interest of Dr. Kawada [1] that has been aroused by our article that had been published in the "International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health" 2017;30(3):511-20 [2]. Authors are aware of limitations of their research, which has been wide ly discussed in the article.…”