The health impacts of environmental noise are a growing concern. At least one million healthy life years are lost every year from traffic-related noise in the western part of Europe. This publication summarises the evidence on the relationship between environmental noise and health effects, including cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, sleep disturbance, tinnitus, and annoyance. For each one, the environmental burden of disease methodology, based on exposure-response relationship, exposure distribution, background prevalence of disease and disability weights of the outcome, is applied to calculate the burden of disease in terms of disability-adjusted life-years. Data are still lacking for the rest of the WHO European Region. This publication provides policy-makers and their advisers with technical support in their quantitative risk assessment of environmental noise. International, national and local authorities can use the procedure for estimating burdens presented here to prioritize and plan environmental and public health policies.

Burden of Disease from Environmental Noise: Quantification of Healthy Life Years Lost in Europe

Study Objectives: Traffic noise disturbs sleep and may impair recuperation. There is limited information on single and combined effects of air, road and rail traffic noise on sleep and recuperation.
Design: Repeated measures
Setting: Polysomnographic laboratory study
Participants: 72 healthy subjects, mean ± standard deviation 40 ± 13 years, range 18-71 years, 32 male
Interventions: Exposure to 40, 80, or 120 rail, road, and/or air traffic noise events
Measurements and Results: Subjects were investigated for 11 consecutive nights, which included eight noise exposure nights and one noise-free control night. Noise effects on sleep structure and continuity were subtle, even in nights with combined exposure, most likely due to habituation and an increase in arousal thresholds both within and across nights. However, cardiac arousals did not habituate across nights. Noise exposure significantly affected subjective assessments of sleep quality and recuperation, whereas objective performance was unaffected, except for a small increase in mean PVT reaction time (+4 ms, adjusted P 3 kHz) noise event components.
Conclusions: Road, rail, and air traffic noise differentially affect objective and subjective assessments of sleep. Differences in the degree of noise-induced sleep fragmentation between traffic modes were explained by the specific spectral and temporal composition of noise events, indicating potential targets for active and passive noise control. Field studies are needed to validate our findings in a setting with higher ecologic validity.

http://www.laermorama.ch/m6_machtlaermkrank/pdf/03_Basner2011_Air,%20Road,%20Rail%20and%20Sleep.pdf

Single and combined effects of air, road, and rail traffic noise on sleep and recuperation.

Objectives: EEG arousals are associated with autonomic activations. Visual EEG arousal scoring is time consuming and suffers from low interob-server agreement. We hypothesized that information on changes in heart rate alone suffice to predict the occurrence of cortical arousal. Methods: Two visual AASM EEG arousal scorings of 56 healthy subject nights (mean age 37.0 ± 12.8 years, 26 male) were obtained. For each of 5 heartbeats following the onset of 3581 consensus EEG arousals and of an equal number of control conditions, differences to a moving median were calculated and used to estimate likelihood ratios (LRs) for 10 categories of heartbeat differences. Comparable to 5 consecutive diagnostic tests, these LRs were used to calculate the probability of heart rate responses being associated with cortical arousals. Results: EEG and ECG arousal indexes agreed well across a wide range of decision thresholds, resulting in a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) with an area under the curve of 0.91. For the decision threshold chosen for the final analyses, a sensitivity of 68.1% and a specificity of 95.2% were obtained. ECG and EEG arousal indexes were poorly correlated (r = 0.19, P <0.001, ICC = 0.186), which could in part be attributed to 3 outliers. The Bland-Altman plot showed an unbiased estimation of EEG arousal indexes by ECG arousal indexes with a standard deviation of ± 7.9 arousals per hour sleep. In about two-thirds of all cases, ECG arousal scoring was matched by at least one (22.2%) or by both (42.5%) of the visual scorings. Sensitivity of the algorithm increased with increasing duration of EEG arousals. The ECG algorithm was also successfully validated with 30 different nights of 10 subjects (mean age 35.3 □ 13.6 years, 5 male). Conclusions: In its current version, the ECG algorithm cannot replace visual EEG arousal scoring. Sensitivity for detecting <10-s EEG arousals needs to be improved. However, in a nonclinical population, it may be valuable to supplement visual EEG arousal scoring by this automatic, objective, reproducible, cheap, and time-saving method.

/pdf/an-ecg-based-algorithm-for-the-automatic-identification-of-4jferclqzm.pdf

An ECG-based Algorithm for the Automatic Identification of Autonomic Activations Associated with Cortical Arousal

Partial sleep deprivation: impact on the architecture and quality of sleep

Annoyance from nocturnal aircraft noise exposure: Laboratory and field-specific dose–response curves

Effects of Nocturnal Aircraft Noise - Volume 1: Executive Summery

Effects of nocturnal aircraft noise on sleep: Acoustical setup and results of DLR laboratory and field studies

Humanspezifische Nachtfluglärmwirkungen - Eine Teilauswertung von 64 Versuchspersonen in 832 Schlaflabornächten

The DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne investigates the influence of nocturnal aircraft noise on human sleep and performance. 128 healthy volunteers aged 18-65 are being examined in four studies during 13 consecutive nights (2300-0700) in our sleep laboratory. The results will be validated in 2 field studies investigating 64 volunteers, thus 2496 nights in total will be observed. Various physiological signals are sampled: polysomnographic measurements (EEG, EOG, EMG), the electrocardiogram, finger pulse amplitude, respiration and actigraphy. The stress parameters cortisol, epinephrine and nor-epinephrine are extracted from nocturnal urine samples. The AGARD-Stres battery is used to examine the possible interference of aircraft noise induced sleep disturbances with mental performance. In order to measure subjective reactions, psychometric questionnaires are filled out twice a day. In 9 of the 13 nights of the laboratory studies, aircraft noise with varying frequencies of occurrence (4 to 128 events) and noise levels ranging from 50 to 80 dB LAS,max (LAS,eq(3) 31.2-52.6 dB) is presented by loudspeakers. Correct playback is assured by re-measurements of terz levels in each bedroom. The noise has been recorded in bedrooms with closed or tilted windows of residents living near an airport using a class 1 noise level meter. Since all parameters are stored simultaneously on hard disk, single noise events can be analysed and correlated with physiological parameters.

/pdf/the-influence-of-nocturnal-aircraft-noise-on-humans-a-new-37qxlgelqh.pdf

The Influence of Nocturnal Aircraft Noise on Humans - A New Comprehensive Approach

Motorisierter Verkehr - ob zu Lande, zu Wasser oder in der Luft - erzeugt Laerm. Im Umfeld von Flughaefen mit Nachtflugbetrieb stellt die Stoerung der Nachtruhe durch Fluglaerm ein wesentliches Problem fuer die Bewohner dar. Die objektive Untersuchung der Beeintraechtigung des Schlafs durch naechtlichen Fluglaerm steht daher im Mittelpunkt eines Forschungsvorhabens, welches im Rahmen des Projekts "Leiser Flugverkehr" durch das DLR-Institut fuer Luft- und Raumfahrtmedizin bearbeitet wird. In vier Labor- und zwei Feldstudien werden insgesamt 192 Probanden in zusammen 2.500 Naechten untersucht, in denen zeitlich synchron akustische und physiologische Daten aufgezeichnet werden. Im Labor werden dazu waehrend der Naechte zuvor in Schlafzimmern von Flughafenanrainern aufgenommene Fluggeraeusche mit verschiedenen Haeufigkeiten und unterschiedlichen Maximalpegeln eingespielt und wiederum gleichzeitig mit den physiologischen Signalen erfasst. Daraus werden unter anderem Schlafprofile abgeleitet und natuerliche oder durch Laerm verursachte Schlafstoerungen diagnostiziert. Stresshormone werden aus dem Urin bestimmt. Leistungsaenderungen auf Grund von potenziellen Schlafbeeintraechtigungen werden am folgenden Tag gemessen. Aus den Ergebnissen soll die Formulierung von Bewertungskriterien fuer humanspezifische Nachtfluglaermwirkungen folgen. Die Untersuchungsreihe mit einer Laufzeit von vier Jahren ist das nach Art und Umfang weltweit groesste Forschungsvorhaben auf diesem Gebiet. Es wird damit ein viel versprechender Weg zu einem besseren Verstaendnis naechtlicher Fluglaermwirkungen beschritten und gleichzeitig die wissenschaftliche Basis fuer Laermminderungs- und Planungsmassnahmen geschaffen. Daher wird dieses Vorhaben in enger Verzahnung mit den anderen Teilprojekten im Projekt "Leiser Flugverkehr" realisiert. Dieses Projekt wird wesentliche Grundlagen fuer die Entwicklung eines Massnahmenkatalogs zu einer wirkungsvollen Verminderung der Laermbelastung in der Umgebung von Flughaefen liefern, der dazu dienen soll, selbst bei einem prognostizierten Anwachsen des Luftverkehrs um 50 Prozent in den kommenden Jahren die Bevoelkerung deutlich vom Laerm zu entlasten. (A) Titel in Englisch: Effects of air traffic on sleep - a new research approach.

M. Basner

Papers

Effects of Nocturnal Aircraft Noise - Volume 1: Executive Summery

Effects of nocturnal aircraft noise on sleep: Acoustical setup and results of DLR laboratory and field studies

Humanspezifische Nachtfluglärmwirkungen - Eine Teilauswertung von 64 Versuchspersonen in 832 Schlaflabornächten

The Influence of Nocturnal Aircraft Noise on Humans - A New Comprehensive Approach

Wirkung von Nachtfluglaerm auf den Schlaf - ein neuer Forschungsansatz