Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health assessed the levels of noise generated by road traffic and examined its impact on health in 749 European cities.
They said that compliance with the World Health Organisation (WHO) noise-level guidelines could prevent 3,600 deaths annually from heart disease alone.
Road traffic is the main source of environmental noise. Previous research has linked environmental noise to a range of adverse health effects: sleep disturbance, annoyance, cardiovascular and metabolic disease, adverse birth outcomes, cognitive impairment, poor mental health and well-being, and premature mortality.
Long-term exposure to road traffic noise can also cause a sustained stress reaction, which results in the release of stress hormones and increases in heart rate, blood pressure and vasoconstriction, eventually leading to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, depression and anxiety disorders.
For this study, data...
