Assessing the environmental burden of disease due to road traffic noise in Hesse, Germany

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Abstract

As guidance for informed decision-making, we estimated the environmental burden of disease attributable to road-traffic noise in Hesse. Using detailed road-traffic-noise exposure data provided by HLNUG, we calculated the DALYs due to road-traffic noise > 40 dB(A) L24h (unweighted average 24 h noise level) and other noise metrics for endpoints with known dose-response functions and evidence in the literature (NORAH-study on disease risks and WHO reviews). For Hesse, we found a total of 26,501 DALYs attributable to road-traffic noise or 435 DALY per 100,000 persons for the reference year, 2015. The end points "Annoyance" and "Sleep disturbance" contribute more than 70 % of the burden. Further, we estimated that a hypothetic uniform road-traffic-noise reduction of 3 dB would prevent 23% of this burden of disease. We are planning to suggest an alternative approach to extract an annoyance function from raw data used in the WHO-review. Our findings imply that the burden attributable to street-traffic-noise is of the same order of magnitude as, for example, the more fully researched environmental risk factor particulate matter. HLNUG is evaluating expanding the BoD-approach including uncertainty assessment to other environmental risk factors and its use for informing decision makers.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering (INTER-NOISE 2022)
PublisherInstitute of Acoustics (IOA)
Volume44
Edition2
ISBN (print)9781713863601
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesProceedings of the Institute of Acoustics : contributed papers

Conference

Title51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, Internoise 2022
Duration21 - 24 August 2022
CityGlasgow
CountryUnited Kingdom

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas