Road-Traffic Noise Exposure Increases Risk of Stroke, Study Finds

Higher levels of exposure on road-traffic noise may increase the risk of stroke according to recent study.

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Research included the entire Danish population where the researchers estimated road-traffic and railway noise (Lden) at the most and least exposed facades for all residential addresses across Denmark (about 2.8 million) within the period of 1990-2017. For the 3.6 million Danes aged >35 years, this served as the basis for the 10-year time-weighted average noise exposure.

Correlations were analyzed utilizing the Cox proportional hazards models. The models were controlled for various individual- and area-level demographic and socioeconomic covariates generated from registries, as well as for air pollution.

There were 184,523 individuals developed incident stroke over the follow-up (2000-2017). There was positive relationship of the risk of incident stroke with road-traffic noise exposure.

Particularly, the incidence rate ration of all strokes correlated with every 10-dB increase in the 10-year average road-traffic noise at the most exposed façade was 1.04. In the meantime, the railway noise had a null effect on the risk of incident stroke.

The current data point to the potential of road-traffic noise as a cardiovascular risk factor. For a full view of the clinical study, you may click here.

 

Source: Int J Epidemiol 2021;doi:10.1093/ije/dyab024