Systematic review of evidence of the cardiovascular and metabolic effects of environmental noise

In 1999 and 2009, WHO has published reviews dealing with the scientific evidence on noise and health, and made recommendations for protecting human health from environmental noise exposure. Over the years, the number of studies investigating the impact of noise on the cardiovascular system has increased substantially. Among these, several large cohort studies have been performed. In the existing guidelines and published studies, the main sources of concern were road traffic and air traffic. The impact of sources such as rail traffic and wind turbines, was not addressed in previous guidelines. But with the ongoing extension of railway transport facilities, and the substantial growth of wind energy facilities, the number of studies investigating the impact of railway noise or wind turbine noise has increased. Another trend is that several studies have been published that investigated the possible effects of noise on our metabolic system resulting in outcomes such as diabetes and obesity. For these reasons WHO decided to revise their existing health guidelines. To this end, all pertinent literature was systematically reviewed, using a protocol developed for this purpose. In this paper the first results of this systematic review, including quantitative risk estimates, will be presented and discussed.