WHO Environmental noise guidelines for the European Region - What is new? 1. Policy context and methodology used for guideline development

WHO Regional Office for Europe is currently coordinating the systematic review of all pertinent literature in order to provide recommendations for the protection of public health as part of the upcoming WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region (the Guidelines). The entire process is transparent and evidence-based and is...

WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region - What is new? 4. Implementation of guidelines and implications for practice

WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines focus on the WHO European Region and provide guidance to its Member States that is compatible with the noise indicators used in the EU Environmental Noise Directive. The Guidelines aim to serve as a reference for several target audiences, such as decision makers and technical experts, health impact assessment...

WHO environmental noise guidelines for the European Region - What is new? 2. New evidence on health effects from environmental noise and implications for research

The Guidelines include systematic reviews of the scientific evidence of the critical health effects of environmental noise: effects on sleep, annoyance, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular diseases, hearing impairment and tinnitus. Other potential health outcomes with less evidence are also systematically reviewed, but have less impact on the...

WHO Environmental noise guidelines for the European Region - What is new? Guideline recommendations and supporting evidence - What is new?

The Guidelines will include recommendations on transportation noise (air, road, rail), leisure noise and wind turbine noise, focusing on the exposure-response functions for the assessment of health impacts, and/or noise exposure levels above which there is an increased risk of adverse health effects. They will also include a recommendation of...

WHO environmental noise guidelines for the European Region

WHO published the Guidelines for Community Noise in 1999 and the Night Noise Guidelines for Europe in 2009. Significant new research in the area of environmental noise and health has taken place since then. As well, new noise sources of concern for public health, such as personal electronic devices and wind turbines, were not addressed in...

Cardiovascular effects of the combined exposure to noise and outdoor air pollution: A review

The combination of noise with other environmental stressors, particularly traffic-related air pollution, has been of growing interest in recent years. Cardiovascular effects are among the most evidence-based physical health outcomes. Moreover, the European Network on Noise and Health (ENNAH), which helped to establish collaboration between...

Standardized general-purpose noise reaction questions for community noise surveys: Research and a recommendation

Differences in survey questions' wordings and weakness in some questions used to measure noise annoyance have interfered with accumulating knowledge about the factors that affect different communities' responses to noise. In 1993 an ICBEN team, Community Response to Noise, set the goal of creating high-quality survey questions that would yield...

Guidelines for reporting core information from community noise reaction surveys: Community response to noise team of ICBEN (The international commission on the biological effects of noise)

This study has been sponsored by the Ministere de l'Equipement and Ministere de l'Environnement and conducted by INRETS to assess the impact of road traffic noise in suburban areas during evening and night time periods. The 18 study sites include both houses and blocks of flats within 300 meters of three types of roads (local streets, major...