Environmental Factors: Noise

Noise is the term used to describe sounds (sounds; mechanical vibrations) which, due to their structure (usually loudness), can have a disturbing, stressful and/or harmful effect on the environment (in this case: people).

Noise is everywhere nowadays. Almost everyone is exposed to noise in everyday life (traffic noise), in their leisure time to sports and recreational noise, such as loud disco music, and at work to industrial and commercial noise.

Studies on the effects of traffic and aircraft noise are increasingly available.

Prolonged exposure to noise or short, extremely intense noise is hazardous to health.

Noise – effects on health:

  • Ears
    • Disturbances of blood circulation in the inner ear with damage to sensory cells.
    • Temporary hearing deterioration or short-term tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
    • Hearing disorders – frequency and directional hearing
    • Hearing loss
    • Hearing loss
    • Acute noise trauma
    • Tinnitus
  • Depression
  • Diabetes mellitus type 2 – chronic noise exposure could possibly make the onset of the disease more likely wg associated sleep disturbances and stress responses
  • Insomnia (sleep disturbances)
  • Cardiovascular disease
    • Heart failure (cardiac insufficiency)
    • Hypertension (high blood pressure), myocardial infarction (heart attack), apoplexy (stroke); night flight noise may cause vascular damage; likely activation of endothelium-damaging metabolic pathways by noise
    • Coronary heart disease (CHD; coronary artery disease): 8% increase in risk of coronary heart disease for every 10 decibel increase in road traffic noise
    • Apoplexy:
      • Road noise: compared with road noise below 55 db, road noise above 60 db increases the risk of apoplexy by a significant 5% in adults and by a significant 9% in those over 75 years of age
      • Aircraft noise: 10 decibel increase in average noise level increases stroke risk by 1.3

At very high levels (200 dB and above), sound can have an immediate lethal effect because the alveoli (air sacs in the lungs) burst.

Infrasound

Not only noise has harmful effects on health, but possibly also the sound that you do not hear: Infrasound

Infrasound is sound whose frequency is below the human auditory surface, that is, below 16-20 Hz. Affected people describe a pulsating or a feeling of pressure on the eardrum as well as on the chest.

In the current list of occupational diseases of 2017, health disorders caused by infrasound have not been listed, although health damage due to short- and long-term exposure to infrasound cannot be ruled out.