Association of Long-term Exposure to Community Noise and Traffic-related Air Pollution With Coronary Heart Disease Mortality

In metropolitan areas, road traffic is a major contributor to ambient air pollution and the dominant source of community noise. The authors investigated the independent and joint influences of community noise and traffic-related air pollution on risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in a population-based cohort study with a 5-year exposure period (January 1994–December 1998) and a 4-year follow-up period (January 1999–December 2002). Individuals who were 45–85 years of age and resided in metropolitan Vancouver, Canada, during the exposure period and did not have known CHD at baseline were included (n ¼ 445,868). Individual exposures to community noise and traffic-related air pollutants, including black carbon, particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 lm in aerodynamic diameter, nitrogen dioxide, and nitric oxide, were estimated at each person’s residence using a noise prediction model and land-use regression models, respectively. CHD deaths were identified from the provincial death registration database. After adjustment for potential confounders, including traffic-related air pollutants or noise, elevations in noise and black carbon equal to the interquartile ranges were associated with 6% (95% confidence interval: 1, 11) and 4% (95% confidence interval: 1, 8) increases, respectively, in CHD mortality. Subjects in the highest noise decile had a 22% (95% confidence interval: 4, 43) increase in CHD mortality compared with persons in the lowest decile. These findings suggest that there are independent effects of traffic-related noise and air pollution on CHD mortality. air pollution; cohort studies; coronary heart disease; environmental exposure; mortality; transportation noise; vehicle emissions