{"id":290,"date":"2018-05-24T09:38:41","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T09:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizon.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=290"},"modified":"2018-05-29T23:41:12","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T23:41:12","slug":"noise-pollution-is-one-of-the-biggest-health-risks-in-city-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/290\/noise-pollution-is-one-of-the-biggest-health-risks-in-city-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Noise pollution is one of the biggest health risks in city life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Noise is one of the biggest pollutants in modern cities but the risk is often overlooked despite being linked to an increased risk of early death, according to research conducted by scientists.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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\u2018Noise produces a stimulus to the central nervous system and this stimulus releases some hormones,\u2019 said Dr David Rojas from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain. \u2018(This) increases the risk of hypertension, and hypertension has been related with many other cardiovascular (and) cerebrovascular diseases like infarction (heart attacks) and strokes.\u2019<\/p>\n

He was speaking in Brussels, Belgium, on 23 May at the annual\u00a0Green Week<\/a>\u00a0conference, part of a Europe-wide event to help people swap best practices on environmental activities and policies. This year\u2019s focus is how the EU is helping cities to become better places to live and work.<\/p>\n

Dr Rojas, an environmental health researcher, says that despite the fact that noise pollution is a major public health problem in cities \u2013 and, in fact,\u00a0beats air pollution as a risk factor in Barcelona<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 there is a tendency to overlook the problem because we can tune it out.<\/p>\n

\u2018When we have a background noise, the brain has the capacity to adapt to this noise,\u2019 he said. \u2018And you don\u2019t see it as an annoyance so much and you start to accept and adapt. But even if you are not conscious of the noise, this is still stimulating your organic system.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dr Rojas\u2019 research, which was carried out under the\u00a0HELIX\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0PASTA\u00a0<\/a>projects, gathered data on the multiplicity of pollutants that we encounter in cities. He hopes the findings can be used to shape policies that could help improve health in urban areas.<\/p>\n

For example, improving cycling infrastructure and encouraging parents to walk their children to school could not only cut noise and air pollution but would also improve levels of physical activity.<\/p>\n

Multiple benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018There are multiple benefits of good urban design,\u2019 said Dr Rojas. \u2018It\u2019s not only air pollution or noise, it\u2019s also physical activity, green spaces, (and) heat.\u2019<\/p>\n

As part of the HELIX project, Dr Rojas and his team measured the impact of encouraging all children who lived within 1 kilometre of a school to walk there each day. The result was a dramatic improvement in children\u2019s health by reducing high blood pressure and obesity, as well as by avoiding a slew of minor road traffic injuries.<\/p>\n

Their findings are also challenging the common misconceptions about whether the harm caused by air pollution counteracts the benefits of walking or cycling in cities. \u2018The benefit is 70 times bigger than the risk,\u2019 said Dr Rojas.<\/p>\n

He added that while pregnant women and young children were particularly vulnerable to urban pollutants, the problem affects everybody, regardless of life stage, resulting in a large public health burden.<\/p>\n

\u2018In the case of air pollution, even if we feel that we are not vulnerable \u2013 we are adults and we are healthy \u2013 we are suffering from this exposure. We are losing quality of life and quantity of life because we are exposed to these pollutants.\u2019<\/p>\n

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‘We are losing quality of life and quantity of life because we are exposed to these pollutants.’<\/p>\n

Dr David Rojas, Barcelona, Spain<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

The conference also heard about some of the nature-based innovations, such as urban greening, that are being adopted throughout Europe in order to improve the quality of city life.<\/p>\n

Community gardens, living walls, and putting greenery in so-called grey spaces such as railway lines, are all examples of attempts to make urban areas more natural places to live and work, according to Dr Dora Almassy from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.<\/p>\n

Nature-based solutions<\/strong><\/p>\n

She has helped to compile a database of nature-based solutions being used in towns and cities around Europe to produce an\u00a0urban nature atlas<\/a>\u00a0as part of a project called Naturvation.<\/p>\n

\u2018More than half of the projects (in the database) provided benefits for the health and wellbeing of the citizens,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

This is because they create a healthier working environment and provide space for more leisure and recreational activities. Spending time in green spaces has also been linked to improved mental health, while such projects can also be used for food production and education. But not all of the projects achieve the same benefits for those who use them.<\/p>\n

\u2018Certain types of nature-based solutions are better placed to improve the health of the citizens,\u2019 said Dr Almassy. \u2018These are community gardens, parks, or simple green grey infrastructures and \u2026 green roofs and green facades.\u2019<\/p>\n

One example is Alder Hey Children\u2019s Hospital in Liverpool, UK, which is was designed to have green spaces inside and out, exposing the children being treated there to a more natural environment. The plants are also used to produce food, which is then supplied to the hospital canteen.<\/p>\n

Dr Almassy said that many of these projects are reliant upon the public sector for funding and execution, so future research needs to look at business models that will encourage companies and individuals to contribute to a green urban environment.<\/p>\n

Dr Rojas added that another big challenge for the future will be to combine the data on different environmental factors to produce models that can give far more comprehensive predictions for policy decisions.<\/p>\n

\u2018When you are in the city, we are not exposed to a single pollutant, we are exposed to a mix of things,\u2019 he said. \u2018We need to think of how we can approach in a better way this complexity of exposure. The urban environment is more than a single thing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Originally published on Horizon<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noise is one of the biggest pollutants in modern cities but the risk is often overlooked despite being linked to an increased risk of early death, according to research conducted by scientists. \u2018Noise produces a stimulus to the central nervous system and this stimulus releases some hormones,\u2019 said Dr David Rojas from the Barcelona Institute … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[156,4,37,125,79,24],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-energy-environment","category-health","tag-cities","tag-environment","tag-health","tag-pollution","tag-research","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"\nNoise pollution is one of the biggest health risks in city life - Horizon Magazine Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/290\/noise-pollution-is-one-of-the-biggest-health-risks-in-city-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Noise pollution is one of the biggest health risks in city life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Noise is one of the biggest pollutants in modern cities but the risk is often overlooked despite being linked to an increased risk of early death, according to research conducted by scientists. \u2018Noise produces a stimulus to the central nervous system and this stimulus releases some hormones,\u2019 said Dr David Rojas from the Barcelona Institute ... 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But when the air we breathe contains harmful particulate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Earth, Energy & Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Earth, Energy & Environment","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/earth-energy-environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/11\/1-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/11\/1-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/11\/1-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/11\/1-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/11\/1-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/11\/1-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2188,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/2188\/reducing-noise-pollution-with-acoustic-walls-and-rubberised-roads\/","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":1},"title":"Reducing noise pollution with acoustic walls and rubberised roads","author":"Horizon Magazine","date":"October 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Sound-diffracting walls and rubberised asphalt ingredients tackle the major environmental concern of noise pollution from traffic. By\u00a0\u00a0TOM CASSAUWERS In cities across the European Union, noise is a significant health hazard along with air pollution. Efforts are under way to reduce a major source of both: traffic. Noise is the number-two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Earth, Energy & Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Earth, Energy & Environment","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/earth-energy-environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/10\/21.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/10\/21.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/10\/21.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/10\/21.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/10\/21.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/10\/21.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1340,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/1340\/qa-what-lockdown-air-pollution-reductions-mean-for-the-future-of-urban-transport\/","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":2},"title":"Q&A: What lockdown air pollution reductions mean for the future of urban transport","author":"Horizon Magazine","date":"July 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by\u00a0Aisling Irwin People in cities experienced cleaner air during lockdowns, but a permanent shift to greener modes of transport and habits is \u2018extremely complex to achieve\u2019 given how much space is devoted to cars and the groups resisting change, says\u00a0Dr Basile Chaix, who studies the health trade-offs we make as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/health\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"More than half the space in some European cities is devoted to cars, which are parked 90% of the time, says Dr Chaix. Image credit - Wikimedia\/Lionel Allorge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/07\/urbanairpollution-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/07\/urbanairpollution-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/07\/urbanairpollution-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/07\/urbanairpollution-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/07\/urbanairpollution-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/07\/urbanairpollution-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":172,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/172\/ultrafine-pollution-particles-create-air-of-menace\/","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":3},"title":"Ultrafine pollution particles create air of menace","author":"Aisling Irwin","date":"March 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"An air quality study has for the first time detected nano-sized particles of air pollution in children\u2019s urine. With a diameter of just 100 nanometers\u00a0- a thousandth of the width of a human hair -\u00a0these ultrafine particles are the smallest particles found in air pollution and have been linked to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Earth, Energy & Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Earth, Energy & Environment","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/earth-energy-environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"As many as 6.5 million premature deaths every year are attributed to air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/Traffic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/Traffic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/Traffic.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/Traffic.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1824,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/1824\/cutting-edge-european-technology-for-cleaner-mobility-in-cities\/","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":4},"title":"Cutting-edge European technology for cleaner mobility in cities","author":"Horizon Magazine","date":"September 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"European Mobility Week, the European Commission\u2019s flagship awareness raising campaign on sustainable urban mobility, kicked off 16 September. Reducing air pollution from vehicles has been an important focus of the campaign since its launch 20 years ago; and despite significant progress, it\u2019s an issue where sustained effort and innovation remain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Earth, Energy & Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Earth, Energy & Environment","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/earth-energy-environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/09\/1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/09\/1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/09\/1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/09\/1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1350,"url":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/1350\/air-pollution-affects-brain-development-but-when-does-the-damage-start\/","url_meta":{"origin":290,"position":5},"title":"Air pollution affects brain development – but when does the damage start?","author":"Horizon Magazine","date":"July 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by\u00a0Ian Le Guillou The emergency rooms in Barcelona were collapsing under the pressure. Hundreds of patients were arriving in desperate need as they struggled to breathe, while intensive care units struggled to cope with the sudden influx of respiratory problems. Epidemiologists scrambled to trace the source of the outbreak.\u00a0 This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Earth, Energy & Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Earth, Energy & Environment","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/category\/earth-energy-environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"90% of brain development happens by the age of four, so scientists want to understand the effects of air pollution at the earliest stages of life. 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