Noise pollution affects our health

Coinciding with the World Day Against Noise Awareness, CREAL researcher Maria Foraster participated last week in the technical conference "Noise, engineering, technology and health" organized by the College of Engineers and Surveyors of Telecommunications from Catalonia and one day later in the day of Public Health organized by the Pharmaceutical Council of Colleges from Catalonia.

In both, the researcher conducted sessions focused on explaining the adverse effects of noise that have been studied to date, from experimental studies to epidemiological studies. Both sessions explained for first time the effects of noise as an environmental factor of an increasing interest.

According to data from the European Union, over 45% of European population and 65% of the Hispanic population living in agglomerations of more than 250,000 inhabitants (a total of 110 million people) is exposed to daily traffic noise levels higher or equal to 55 decibels. These levels above 50 decibels are indicants by the European Environment Agency as an optimal level of total noise. Several scientific studies have shown that the noise affects our physical and mental health.