Long-term aircraft noise exposure and incident hypertension in National U. S. Cohort Studies

Abstract

Few cohort studies have examined relationships between aircraft noise and health, none in the United States. We evaluated associations between aircraft noise and incident hypertension in three national cohorts of women, the Nurses’ Health Studies (NHS/NHSII) and the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). Noise levels around 90 airports for 1995–2015 (in 5-year intervals) were modeled using the Aviation Environmental Design Tool and assigned to participants’ geocoded addresses over time. Hypertension risks were estimated using time-varying Cox proportional-hazards models for day-night average sound level dichotomized at 45 and 55 decibels (dB), adjusting for fixed and time-varying covariates. Hypertension cases were 33,190, 28 256, 5299 over 0.7M,1.3M, and 0.09M person-years in NHS, NHSII, and WHI, respectively. In combined NHS/NHSII, we observed adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of 1.03 (95% CI: 0.99, 1.07) for 45dB and 1.07 (95% CI: 0.98, 1.15) for 55 dB cut-points. In WHI, we observed preliminary HRs of 1.03 (0.94, 1.16) for 45 dB and 0.93 (0.83, 1.05) for 55 dB cut-points. Overall, in these cohorts, we did not find clear evidence of a positive association between aircraft noise exposure and hypertension.