Every week, our journalist answers scientific questions from readers.
Is the ambient noise louder than before?
Francine Ringuet
If we rely on European data, the only ones that go back in time, the number of people exposed to harmful noise increased from 2007 to 2017.
But there is growing research on the topic, as well as calls for restrictions in North America.
“We cannot know whether noise is increasing in Canada and the United States because there are no systematic and comparable measurements,” explains Richard Neitzel, an environmental hygienist at the University of Michigan.
“There is data only in the European Union, then a measure adopted in 2003,” he adds.
Mr. Neitzel is leading a large study, launched in 2019, that measures ambient noise using Apple earbuds. Called the Apple Hearing Study, it brings together more than 160,000 Americans from 50 states, and has already made it possible to measure the reduction in ambient noise at the start of the pandemic.
As for European data, they show that between 2007 and 2017, the proportion of the urban population exposed to more than 55 decibels (which corresponds to a conversation between several people) increased from 15% to 21% when we talk about road noise.
Rails and airports bother far fewer people, but there too, there is an increase. Only industrial noise (that which comes from factories, manufacturing sites, construction sites) has not increased in European cities.
Not just hearing
In the last decade, numerous studies have confirmed what specialists in this unloved area of public health have long suspected: the effects of noise on our health do not only affect hearing.
“Noise increases the risk of cardiovascular problems, diabetes and other metabolic problems,” says Hugh Davies, an industrial hygienist at the University of British Columbia.
We studied sawmill workers. They are more likely to die from the cardiovascular consequences of long-term exposure to noise than from an accident with the machines they operate.
Hugh Davies, industrial hygienist at the University of British Columbia
Mr. Neitzel published studies in 2015 and 2017 showing that the costs of cardiovascular problems caused by noise in the United States amount to “several billions of dollars per year”. Those for hearing damage are 10 to 20 times higher. “But we probably greatly underestimate the cardiovascular and metabolic damage caused by noise,” he insists.
According to the European Union, among the environmental factors causing health problems, noise ranks second, behind air pollution, but ahead of food and aquatic chemical contamination.
Music
Another fruitful research subject: the difference between unwanted noise and that which we voluntarily impose on ourselves, like music.
“When I was a teenager, many experts worried about the hearing damage that all Walkman users would suffer. But we did not see this effect,” notes Mr. Neitzel.
With the widespread popularity observed over the last 10 years for earbuds, is this fear legitimate? “With the Apple Hearing Study, we also want to see whether listening to media through earbuds causes hearing damage and also whether it has cardiovascular or metabolic effects,” answers Mr. Neitzel.
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- 50%
- Increased risk of hypertension associated with exposure for 30 years, in a sawmill, to a working environment exceeding 85 decibels, which is equivalent to the noise made by a lawn mower
Source : occupational & environmental medicine
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- 47%
- Increased risk of hospitalization associated with hearing loss
Source: American Public Health Association
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- 46%
- Increased healthcare costs associated with hearing loss
Source: American Public Health Association