Environmental noise during night-time carries negative effect on sleep

A new study published in Environmental Health Perspective suggests that transportation noise carries a detrimental impact on self-reported sleep.

A sufficient amount and quality of sleep is required for excellent daily alertness and function, as well as a high quality of life. Environmental noise, particularly from aviation, road, and rail activity, causes a significant burden of disease in Europe. Nighttime noise is associated with a large illness burden. The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued guidelines for environmental noise management based on a review of information published up to 2015 on the effects of ambient noise on sleep. As a result, Michael Smith and colleagues undertook this systematic review and meta-analysis to update the WHO evidence assessment on the effects of ambient noise on sleep disruption with more current data.

Scopus, PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO were used to find studies on self-reported sleep among people exposed to ambient traffic noise at home. The three outcomes were falling asleep, awakenings, and sleep disruption. Extracted data were used to generate exposure-response relationships for the likelihood of being severely disturbed by night-time noise [average outdoor A-weighted noise level 2300-0700 hours] for aviation, road, and rail traffic noise separately. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) standards were used to assess the overall quality of evidence.

The key findings of this study were:

1. In addition to the 25 research from the initial WHO study, eleven more studies were added.

2. There was intermediate quality of evidence for the risk of being very sleep disturbed per 10-dB increase in Lnight for airplane, road, and railway noise when sleep disturbance questions clearly indicated noise as the source of disturbance.

3. When noise was not indicated, the quality of evidence for having sleep disturbed per 10-dB rise in Lnight for airplane, road, and train noise was poor to very low.

4. When compared to the initial WHO evaluation, the exposure-response correlations for all traffic types were closely agreed upon at low (40 dB Lnight) levels, but revealed increased disruption by aircraft traffic at high noise levels.

5. Sleep disturbance did not differ considerably across European and non-European studies.

Reference:

Smith, M. G., Cordoza, M., & Basner, M. (2022). Environmental Noise and Effects on Sleep: An Update to the WHO Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. In Environmental Health Perspectives (Vol. 130, Issue 7). Environmental Health Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp10197