Environmental aircraft noise and stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Cerebrovascular accidents ("stroke") have enormous public health impact in regard to mortality, disability and long-term dependency from care. The role of aircraft noise as a presumed risk factor for cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality is still unresolved.OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether individuals exposed to environmental civilian aircraft noise are at an elevated risk of fatal or non-fatal cerebrovascular accident. METHODS: We performed a systematic review and a meta-analysis. The study design has been previously published with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) on 11th December of 2013 (registration number CRD42013006004) and can be accessed on the PROSPERO website (Seidler et al. 2013). An extensive systematic electronic literature search was conducted in MEDLINE. EMBASE and BIOSIS, supplemented by a comprehensive hand search. In a three-step iterative process, titles, abstracts and full-texts of studies identified in the search were screened for eligibility by two reviewers independently. Study quality appraisal was performed and data extracted. Currently the meta-analysis is being processed.RESULTS: At the congress, we will present results of our systematic review and meta-analysis.