AS481 - Cardiovascular disease and aircraft noise exposure

Investigator Names and Contact Information

Junenette Peters (petersj@bu.edu)

Introduction/Intent

Exposure to aircraft noise has been associated with physiological responses and psychological reactions. However, the extent to which exposure to aircraft noise increases the risk of adverse health outcomes is not well understood. In previous work conducted by our Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-supported Center of Excellence, we leveraged administrative data from the Medicare system to evaluate the association between aircraft noise from 89 airports across the U.S. and cardiovascular hospital admissions among Medicare beneficiaries. Although our findings were robust, our study had several limitations, including reliance on ZIP code resolution address information, limited data on individual risk factors, and International Classification of Disease (ICD)-coded claims. We therefore propose to continue evaluating the health effects of noise exposure in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) clinical trials and observational study cohorts, by linking study data to aircraft noise exposures and then estimating their associations with cardiovascular disease (CVD). This proposed cohort study will expand our understanding of the noise-health relationship by: (1) estimating residential exposure to aircraft noise exposures over time to geocoded participant addresses 1993-2012; (2) assessing associations between the exposures and CVD; (3) examining the noise-CVD associations for evidence of thresholds and non-linearity; and finally, (4) determining the number of incident CVD events attributable to noise that could be reduced by decreasing exposures to aircraft noise. As growth in aviation is anticipated, the results of this timely study will inform FAA’s strategies for reducing adverse health effects of aircraft noise and their policy decisions related to threshold setting in the U.S.

SPECIFIC AIMS

The aims of the proposed study are to:

1. Develop national noise surfaces using Integration Noise Model (INM) modeling.
2. Assign aircraft noise exposures over time to geocoded participant addresses, 1993-2012.
3. Estimate associations between the exposures and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
4. Examine the noise-CVD associations for evidence of thresholds and non-linearity.
5. Determine the number of incident CVD events attributable to noise that could be reduced by decreasing exposures to aircraft noise.