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music players or rock concerts is estimated to have tripled for young people since the 1980s. A new review examines studies that have investigated noise sources including environmental (e.g. traffic) and social (e.g. via headphones). The review also explores research into the range of health effects beyond hearing impairments, such as annoyance and cardiovascular problems. Noise is ubiquitous to everyday life. Exposure in the workplace is a common problem and as a result many countries have developed legislation to protect employees. Te increase in social exposure to noise is worrying, say the review’s authors, as there is now evidence that noise exposure when young can contribute to hearing loss in later life. Hearing impairment as a result of noise exposure presents a serious public health problem; it is estimated that worldwide 1.3 billion people sufer from this condition and the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 10% of the global population are currently exposed to noise levels that could lead to hearing impairment. However, new treatments are under development. An oral drug, D-methionine, has shown good protection against hearing loss in animals and the review’s authors predict that these kinds of treatments will be available for human use in the next 10 years. In addition to hearing problems the non-auditory health impacts of noise exposure, including annoyance, sleep disturbance, heart disease and cognitive impairment, are all causing increasing concern. Annoyance, which could be thought of as trivial, can in fact lead to anger, stress and exhaustion and, because of the large number of individuals afected, is estimated to be the second most important cause of health impacts due to environmental noise. Sleep disturbance is thought to have the greatest efect on health because it can have impacts on alertness, performance at work and general quality of life. In fact, studies have suggested that noise levels at night may have a greater impact on long-term health than noise exposure during the day. Source: Basner, M., Babisch, W., Davis, A. et al. (2014). Auditory and non-auditory efects of noise on health. Te Lancet. 383: 1325-1332. DOI: 10.1016/S0140- 6736(13)61613-X. Contact: basner@ upenn.edu Teme(s): Noise, Environment and health Cardiovascular disease, which includes high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, has been clearly linked with long-term exposure to environmental noise. For instance, an analysis combining the results from many diferent studies found that an increase of 10 dB of transport noise (trafc and aircraft) can lead to an increase in risk of high blood pressure or heart disease of between 7 and 17%. Finally, the results of over 20 studies have shown that environmental noise can afect children’s learning and cognitive development. Exposure to road, rail and aircraft noise over long periods can reduce memory, reading ability and test performance. For example, as part of the EU-funded RANCH project8 , a study was carried out on 2844 9-to-10 year-olds attending 89 schools near major airports in London, Amsterdam and Madrid. After accounting for variables such as socioeconomic status, the results showed a clear link between noise exposure and reduced reading comprehension and memory. 8 Te RANCH (Road traffic and Aircraft Noise exposure and children’s Cognition and Health) project was supported by the European Commission. See: http://ec.europa.eu/ research/quality-of-life/ka4/pdf/report_ranch_en.pdf “In addition to hearing problems, the nonauditory health impacts of noise exposure, including annoyance, sleep disturbance, heart disease and cognitive impairment, are all causing increasing concern.” NOISE IMPACTS ON HEALTH 12 Preserving quiet areas improves health Living in a quiet area has a positive impact on health. A study assessed quality of life for people living in quiet and noisy locations and found that those who lived in quiet locations – particularly in rural areas – had a better quality of life. Te EU’s Noise Directive exists to protect people from the adverse impacts of noise and preserve the health benefts of quiet spaces. However, while there have been many studies on the negative impacts of noise, such as annoyance and lost sleep, there have been relatively few studies on the positive impacts of quiet spaces. Noise impacts – positive or negative – can be measured and compared by using health-related quality of life (HRQOL), which asks people to rate how satisfed they are with numerous aspects of their health. Other measures can be used to express health impacts in terms of the healthy days or years of life that are lost. For example, in Europe each year, the equivalent of a million healthy years of life are thought to be lost due to trafc noise. Te authors decided to adopt a HRQOL approach to compare the health impacts of noise in ‘noisy’ versus ‘quiet’ areas in New Zealand. Tey used data from studies on noise-related health carried out in four diferent areas, described as: ‘quiet rural’, ‘noisy rural’, ‘quiet city’ and ‘noisy city’. Te noisy rural location was near to a wind farm, while the noisy city locations were near an airport or major motorways. Both quiet locations were situated away from busy roads and industry. A total of 823 people were surveyed in these four locations. Te authors found that quality of life increased as 

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