Mapping of transportation noise-induced health risks as an alternative tool for risk communication with local residents

Abstract

Environmental noise can adversely affect human health and well-being. It is typically quantified by evaluation through strategic noise mapping, indicating the sound level; however, most of the local residents of an area do not understand the significance of sound level because they are unfamiliar with the relationship between sound level and health risks. Therefore, dissemination of information regarding the local health risks due to noise exposure is extremely important for effective risk communication. This study aims to transform noise maps into risk maps indicating the health risks to improve the risk communication with local residents. To this end, we developed a noise map, applied the exposure–response functions established by the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe to convert the sound levels into health risks and, finally, obtained the geospatial distribution of the health risks: health risk maps. Subsequently, we investigated the health risks due to road traffic noise in Sapporo City, Japan. High annoyance, high sleep disturbance, and ischaemic heart disease (IHD) were the observable health outcomes. In contrast to ordinary noise maps indicating the sound level, the health risk maps exhibited the percentages of highly annoyed and highly sleep-disturbed people and revealed the prevalence and mortality rates for IHD. In addition, the total number of residents affected by noise exposure was obtained using these health risk maps. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing health risks due to the road traffic noise of an entire city in Japan. The health risk maps can help the public realise the significant impact noise exposure has on general health. Furthermore, they can be utilised to demonstrate the potential reduction of the risks in future noise mitigation strategies.