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Can exposure to noise affect the 24 h blood pressure profile? Results from the HYENA study
  1. Alexandros S Haralabidis1,2,
  2. Konstantina Dimakopoulou1,
  3. Venetia Velonaki2,
  4. Giorgio Barbaglia3,
  5. Mauro Mussin4,
  6. Matteo Giampaolo4,
  7. Jenny Selander5,
  8. Goran Pershagen5,
  9. Marie-Louise Dudley6,
  10. Wolfgang Babisch7,
  11. Wim Swart8,
  12. Klea Katsouyanni1,
  13. Lars Jarup6,
  14. for the HYENA Consortium
  1. 1Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
  2. 2Laboratory of Prevention, Nurses School, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
  3. 3Environmental Epidemiologic Unit, Regional Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPA), Piedmont Region, Grugliasco, Italy
  4. 4Environmental Epidemiologic Unit, Regional Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPA), Piedmont Region, Milan, Italy
  5. 5Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  6. 6Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK
  7. 7Department of Environmental Hygiene, Federal Environmental Agency, Berlin, Germany
  8. 8National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Dr Klea Katsouyanni, Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Athens Medical School, 75 Mikras Asias street, 115 27 Athens, Greece; kkatsouy{at}med.uoa.gr

Abstract

Objective To study the association between exposure to transportation noise and blood pressure (BP) reduction during nighttime sleep.

Methods 24-h ambulatory BP measurements at 15-min intervals were carried out on 149 persons living near four major European airports. Noise indicators included total and source-specific equivalent indoor noise, total number of noise events, annoyance scores for aircraft and road traffic nighttime noise. Long-term noise exposure was also determined. Multivariate linear regression analysis was applied.

Results The pooled estimates show that the only noise indicator associated consistently with a decrease in BP dipping is road traffic noise. The effect shows that a 5 dB increase in measured road traffic noise during the study night is associated with 0.8% (−1.55, −0.05) less dipping in diastolic BP. Noise from aircraft was not associated with a decrease in dipping, except for a non-significant decrease noted in Athens, where the aircraft noise was higher. Noise from indoor sources did not affect BP dipping.

Conclusions Road traffic noise exposure may be associated with a decrease in dipping. Noise from aircraft was not found to affect dipping in a consistent way across centres and indoor noise was not associated with dipping.

  • Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring
  • blood pressure
  • blood pressure dipping
  • environmental noise
  • noise
  • sleep

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2009.102954

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    Footnotes

    • Funding The HYENA study was funded by the European Commission DG Research (contract no QLK4-CT-2002-02501) in the fifth framework programme, quality of life and management of living resources.

    • Competing interersts None.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of each centre's ethical committee.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.