Proceedings of the 11th Convention of the
European Acoustics Association
Forum Acusticum / EuroNoise 2025


Málaga, Spain
June 23 - 26, 2025





Session: A17.01 Soundscape, environmental quality, health and well-being - General
Date: Tuesday 24 June 2025
Time: 10:40
Title: Up-to-Date Epidemiological Evidence on Health Effects from Transportation Noise for Burden of Disease Assessment
Author(s): Martin Röösli
Nicole Engelmann
Xing Jiang
Danielle Vienneau
Pages: 4533-4538
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.61782/fa.2025.0939
PDF: https://dael.euracoustics.org/confs/fa2025/data/articles/000939.pdf
Conference proceedings
Abstract

A growing body of epidemiological research has assessed the association between transportation noise and various diseases. The aim of this paper is to derive exposure-response functions suitable for burden of disease estimation. We reviewed epidemiological research using the Umbrella+ method, which combines a high quality systematic review with the most recent original studies. We conducted meta-analyses to determine critical health outcomes and derive the latest exposure-response functions. For the following health outcomes, we found moderate or high evidence of an association in adults: all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence, diabetes, dementia and depression. In children, cognitive performance, behavioural problems, and overweight were observed to be related to transportation noise exposure. A systematic analysis of the lowest effect thresholds for studies on mortality and cardiometabolic outcomes indicates a monotonic risk increase from LDEN levels of 45 dB. These exposure-response functions are used in collaboration with the European Environmental Agency to calculate the burden of disease from transportation noise in Europe.