Abstract
Exposure to traffic-related air pollution and noise exposure contributes to detrimental effects on cardiac function, but the underlying short-term effects related to their simultaneous personal exposure remain uncertain. The aim is to assess the impact of total inhaled dose of particulate matter and total noise exposure on the variations of electrocardiogram (ECG) parameters between pre-cycling and post-cycling periods. Mid-June 2019, we collected four participants’ personal exposure data related to traffic-related noise and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) as well as ECG parameters. Several Bayesian linear models were built to examine a potential association between air pollutants and noise exposure and ECG parameters: heart rate (HR), standard deviation of the normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN), percentage of successive RR intervals that differ by more than 50 ms (pNN50), root mean square of successive RR interval differences (rMSSD), low-frequency power (LF), high-frequency power (HF), and ratio of low- to high-frequency power (LF/HF). We analyzed in total 255 5-min segments of RR intervals. We observed that per 1 µg increase in cumulative inhaled dose of PM2.5 was associated with 0.48 (95% CI: 0.22; 15.61) increase in variation of the heart rate, while one percent of total noise dose was associated with 0.49 (95% CI: 0.17; 0.83) increase in variation of heart rate between corresponding periods. Personal noise exposure was no longer significant once the PM2.5 was introduced in the whole model, whilst coefficients of the latter that were significant previously remained unchanged. Short-term exposure to traffic-related air and noise pollution did not, however, have an impact on heart rate variability.
Highlights
Traffic-related air and noise pollution exposure is recognized as one of the major public health challenges of the 21st century
This is consistent with the results of previous studies which show that exposure to PM2.5 may increase heart rate, this does not translate into changes in the parameters of heart rate variability in low polluted environments [44]
This study’s findings support that separate exposure to PM2.5 and noise exposure related to road-traffic lead to a minor increase in heart rate variation between corresponding pre-cycling and post-cycling periods
Summary
Traffic-related air and noise pollution exposure is recognized as one of the major public health challenges of the 21st century It is well-known that exposure to air and noise pollution contributes to detrimental effects on respiratory and cardiovascular systems [1,2,3]. Heart rate variability can be used to measure short-term health effects, thereby showcasing how air and noise pollution disrupts the autonomous cardiac function [2,10]. While both air and noise pollution co-occur in the same environment and alter the cardiac autonomic function, their health endpoint resemblance may reflect either their interaction or one acting as a confounding/effect modifier on the outcome [3]
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