Exposure to the road traffic noise in an urban complex in Greece: the quantification of healthy life years lost due to n
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Exposure to the road traffic noise in an urban complex in Greece: the quantification of healthy life years lost due to noise-induced annoyance and noise-induced sleep disturbances Paraskevi Begou 1 & Pavlos Kassomenos 1 Received: 10 February 2020 / Accepted: 7 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract In the recent years, the environmental noise is a global issue of great concern. Especially, it is considered to be one of the most deleterious environmental risk factors for the human health and well-being in urban areas. In this study, we focus on the major source of the transportation noise in the modern-day urbanized societies, which is the road traffic noise. The study was performed in the urban complex in Thessaloniki-Neapoli in Greece, and the estimation of the road traffic noise levels was based on the CoRTN (Calculation of Road Traffic Noise) prediction method. In addition, we estimated the EBD (environmental burden of disease), in terms of DALYs (disability-adjusted life years), due to the annoyance and sleep disturbances associated with the exposure to road traffic noise. The estimation of the EBD was based on the strategic noise mapping in Thessaloniki-Neapoli as well as on the guidance document produced by the WHO (World Health Organization) for the quantitative assessment on the humans’ health consequences of the environmental noise. Above all, the results revealed the magnitude of the health damage caused by the transportation noise. Keywords Noise pollution . Road traffic noise . CoRTN (Calculation of Road Traffic Noise) . Noise-induced annoyance . Noise-induced sleep disturbances . EBD (environmental burden of disease) . DALYs (disability-adjusted life years)
Introduction The noise pollution has reached a disturbing level over the years which can adversely affect not only the soundscape quality in the urban environments (de Paiva Vianna et al. 2015) but also the public health (Seidman and Standring 2010). In the modern societies, the major sources of environmental noise are the transportation (e.g., road, rail, and air traffic), construction sites, industrial activities, and even the neighborhood itself (WHO 1999). Hänninen et al. (2014) estimated that the noise pollution is one of the most important environmental risk factors in Europe that affects the public Responsible Editor: Lotfi Aleya * Paraskevi Begou [email protected]; [email protected] Pavlos Kassomenos [email protected] 1
Laboratory of Meteorology, Department of Physics, University of Ioannina, GR-45110 Ioannina, Greece
health, accounting for the 8% of the total estimated environmental burden of disease (EBD) (WHO 2009). Also, evidence from laboratory researches (Öhrström et al. 1990; Eraslan et al. 2015) and epidemiological studies in humans (Jakovljevic et al. 2009; Evandt et al. 2017) established the biological effects of the environmental noise on health and well-being (WHO 2018a). The ambient noise has been reported to have adverse psychological and physiological effects on hu
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