Noise

Health effects, research activities

WHO recommendations (2009-2010)

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published the Night Noise Guidelines for Europe. The new Guidelines present new evidence of the health damage of night time noise exposure and recommend threshold values that, if breached at night, would threaten health. An annual average night exposure not exceeding 40 decibel (dB) outdoor has been recommended in the Guidelines.

Sleepers that are exposed to night noise levels above 40dB on average throughout the year, corresponding to the sound in a quiet street, can suffer mild health effects like sleep disturbance and insomnia. Above 55dB long term average exposure, similar to the din of a normal conversation, noise can get to trigger elevated blood pressure and heart attacks.

One in five Europeans is regularly exposed to sound exceeding 55dB at night. The new WHO Guidelines provide evidence-based reference which can be easily adopted as limit values for the member states, allowing them to better target anti-noise measures.

The FP7 ENNAH Project (2009-2011)

The EU Network on Noise and Health project [ENNAH] is reviewing the existing literature on environmental noise exposure and health for the purpose of further consolidation the existing knowledge and to identifiy gaps in the evidence requiring more research.

ENNAH also focuses on noise exposure assessments reported in health studies to enable building more sophisticated complex analytical models of noise and health effects that take into account moderating factors including the joint effects of air pollution and noise. 

In addition the managerial component, the project aims to conduct its review for the following areas:

• Current evidence of environmental noise effects on health.
• novel methods for noise exposure assessment, also taking into account the potential use of noise maps for research.
• Potential mediating, moderating and confounding factors determining the relationship between noise and health effects (including joint effects of noise exposure and air pollution on health).
• Measurement of health outcomes relevant to noise research and newly identified strategies for noise and health research.
• Developing an information strategy and dissemination of the findings of the Network.

The project is financed by FP 7 Research programme and it started on 1 September 2009 for a duration is 24 months ending 1 September 2011.

Relevant projects:

• Final WHO report on night noise guidelines for Europe (2008)
• Other EU research projects
• WHO publications on noise and health
• WHO guidelines for Community noise (1999)
• WHO project on environmental noise burden of disease (forthcoming)
• Position Paper on the relation between annoyance and transport noise
• Position Paper on the relation between sleep disturbance and transport noise
• RANCH project
• HYENA project
• HEARTS project

• PINCHE project

Research database:

• Information on EC funded projects can be found on CALM website (www.calm-network.com) which includes also information on current activities developped in order to identify research needs. See in particular the lastest version of the Strategy Paper prepared by the CALM II network of experts in noise research.
  
  See also the CALM Bluebook which provides comprehensive information about noise research projects funded by the Commission.
  (Please note that this website is temporarily inaccessible)

More information on ongoing noise-related research and studies is available on the CORDIS website as well on CIRCA (see its library containing a comprehensive list of available reports and articles).