Abstract
Almost half of the European Union (EU)’s population is exposed to road traffic noise above levels that constitute a health risk. Associations between road traffic noise and impaired sleep in adults have consistently been reported. Less is known about effects of noise on children’s sleep. The aim of this study was to examine the association between nocturnal road traffic noise exposure and children’s parental-reported sleep duration and sleep problems. The present cross-sectional study used data from The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study. Parental report of children’s sleep duration and sleep problems at age 7 was linked to modelled levels of residential night-time road traffic noise. The study population included 2665 children from Oslo, Norway. No association was found between road traffic noise and sleep duration in the total study population (odds ratio (OR): 1.05, 95% confidence interval (CI): [0.94, 1.17]), but a statistically significant association was observed in girls (OR: 1.21, 95% CI: [1.04, 1.41]). For sleep problems, the associations were similar (OR: 1.36, 95% CI: [0.85, 2.16]) in girls. The ORs are presented for an increase of 10 dB. The findings suggest there is an association between road traffic noise and sleep for girls, underlining the importance of protecting children against excessive noise levels.
Highlights
Sleep disturbance is one of the main negative consequences of environmental noise [1]
An association between road traffic noise and sleep duration was found for girls, with an observed in girls (OR) in the full model, similar to the OR in the crude model and in the model with the minimal adjustment set
The splines of the association between noise and sleep duration shown in Figure 2a and b show an exposure-response relationship for girls, but not for boys
Summary
Sleep disturbance is one of the main negative consequences of environmental noise [1]. 40% of the European Union (EU)’s inhabitants, 125 million people, are exposed to traffic noise levels exceeding the value of Lden 55 dB [2], a level likely to be harmful to health [3]. More than 25 percent of Norwegian children are exposed to noise above Lden 55 dB, and this proportion is increasing [4]. In addition to impact on sleep, environmental noise is associated with annoyance, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular diseases, and mental health impairments [1,2,5,6,7]. Knowledge about the association between nocturnal road traffic noise and sleep mainly comes from studies on adults, and has been obtained with different study designs and different assessments. Public Health 2017, 14, 491; doi:10.3390/ijerph14050491 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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