Children living in the proximity of heavily trafficked roads are exposed to high ambient air pollutant concentrations and high noise levels.

Environmental noise has a very high impact on the European population affecting approximately 80 million people with unacceptable noise levels. Noise is associated with different negative health effects which may in part depend on the noise source (aircraft, road traffic, railways, leisure activities etc.) [1]. Exposure to road traffic noise (the most predominant noise source) is associated e.g. with annoyance, sleep-disturbance, stress related somatic effects, and impacts on concentration and cognitive performance. Quantitative dose-response relationships are known for adults [2, 3] but have not yet been studied in detail for children. Studies on child specific health effects of noise are rare and partly inconsistent [2, 4, 6].

In order to quantify the road traffic noise induced health effects in children, information on noise levels are prerequisite, but noise exposure data are not yet collected routinely at country level. There is much variation in the current EU estimations of noise levels and the number of people exposed. As the preparation of the noise exposure data according to the EU Environmental Noise Directive (END) is still ongoing and not yet available we use the noise exposure levels as reported before introduction of the END in a HIA case study for two cities in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Data on "annoyance" and "sleep disturbance" are not collected on a routine basis, but in Health Surveys or specific epidemiologic studies (e.g. RANCH [5]). In an exposure-based approach [8] the number of children that are highly annoyed by road traffic noise as well as the number of children that are highly sleep disturbed can be estimated by combining the exposure distribution with the dose response function (DRF). These DRF are established for adults for the noise-induced health outcomes annoyance and sleep disturbance [8], but have not yet been studied in detail for children. As causal relationship between road traffic noise and annoyance and sleep disturbance for children seems to be evident, DRFs were used after some adjustments and further evaluation.

The exposure distribution of road traffic noise in children (0 – 14 yrs) in the HIA case study for two cities in North Rhine-Westphalia varies per city. 17 – 34 % of the children is exposed to noise levels of more than 60 dB(A) during the day and 21 – 34 % exposed to noise levels of more than 50 dB(A) at night. First HIA analyses show that although the noise exposure distribution varies, the proportion of children that is highly sleep disturbed is approximately 5 % in both cities. The proportion of highly annoyed children due to traffic noise varies between the cities in the range between 5 – 10 % of all children exposed to road traffic noise.

For the total child population in the two cities of 30759 children in the age till 14 years, 2567 children feel highly annoyed by road traffic noise and 1539 children are highly disturbed in their sleep. Extrapolation to the rest of North Rhine-Westphalia is not possible due to the spatial and regional differences in exposure and population structure.

Ongoing scenario analysis in the ENHIS-2 project will show the health gain that can be achieved if traffic related noise will be reduced.

With the implementation of the EU Directive on Environmental Noise, noise maps for big cities and heavily trafficked roads will be available supplying better and updated exposure data for future HIAs. In order to conduct HIA for children the END report obligations should be tailored to this age group.

References

1. Babisch, W. (2006): Transportation noise and cardiovascular risk: Review and synthesis of epidemiological studies, dose-effect curve and risk estimation. WaBoLu-Hefte; 01/06, Umweltbundesamt, Berlin.
2. Kempen, E. van et al. (2005): Selection and evaluation of exposure-effect-relationships for health impact assessment in the field of noise and health. RIVM report 630400001/2005. RIVM, Bilthoven.
3. Miedema, H.M.E & H. Vos (1998): Exposure-response relationships for transportation noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 104(6): 3432-3445.
4. Bistrup, M.L. (Ed.) (2001): Health effects of noise on children – and perception of the risk of noise. National Institute of Public Health, Copenhagen.
5. Kempen, E. van et al. (2006): Noise exposure and children’s blood pressure and heart rate: the RANCH project. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 63: 632-639.
6. Öhrström E, Hadzibajramovic E, Holmes M, & Svensson, H (2006): Effects of road traffic noise on sleep - studies on children and adults. Journal of Environmental Psychology 26: 116-126.
7. WHO ECEH (2006): Quantifying burden of disease from environmental noise: Second technical meeting report. (Bern, Switzerland, 15.-16.12.2005)
8. Miedema, HME & Oudshoorn, CMG (2001): Annoyance from Transportation Noise: Relationships with Exposure Metrics DNL and DENL and Their Confidence Intervals. Environmental Health Perspectives 109(4): 409-416.