14 DAY TRIAL // A collaboration of investigators based that University of Michigan (U-M) School of Public Health and the Network for Public Health Law (NPHL) suggests that environmental noise pollution is one of the least-understood and least-addressed public health issues facing the United States today.
Now that healthcare is finally progressing in the country, it will pay off to focus on prevention rather than on treating diseases once they set it, the research group believes. Doing this requires an understanding of all threats to public health, but some issues can slip under the radar.
The new study, which is published in the December 5 issue of the esteemed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, argues that environmental noise pollution is an issue that can lead to a variety of negative effects on public health, including a higher incidence of hypertension, heart diseases, stress, learning difficulties, sleep disturbances, and even injuries.
U-M assistant professor of environmental health science Rick Neitzel, one of the co-leaders of the study, says that this type of pollution and hazard affects most people living in urban environments today, and yet it is still blissfully ignored by authorities and prevention programs.
According to the data in the new study, more than 104 million Americans are constantly exposed to noise levels that are high enough to cause health problems every day. Neitzel conducted the new study alongside U-M colleague Monica Hammer.
“Everyone complains about noise, yet we do virtually nothing about it in this country. Noise is really up there in terms of health problems it causes, but it gets no attention – especially compared to other common exposures such as air pollution,” Neitzel says.
“There are a lot of assumptions that noise exposure is self-inflicted, which is often not the case. We'd like to have people see connections beyond hearing loss and expand the conversation,” he explains.
The U-M team argues that excessive noise levels should be included in the federal public health agenda, and the US National Prevention Strategy. Their paper suggests ways for government, federal, state and local authorities to handle this issue.
People living in New York City, for example, are at very high risk of noise-induced hearing loss. Around 90 percent of all those who use urban mass transit are constantly exposed to strong noises from trains, buses, traffic and their personal mp3 players, which they use to block out the other sounds.
“Evidence shows that people exposed to unwanted noise develop a learned helplessness response. We end up believing that there is nothing that can be done to change our environment, when in fact there are many options available to us,” says Hammer, a visiting attorney at the Network for Public Health Law Mid-States Region at U-M.