Aircraft noise and cardiovascular outcomes (ANCO)
Project aims
Transport noise is an under-studied ubiquitous environmental pollutant with important implications for public health, transport policy and urban planning. Aircraft noise already affects more people in the UK than any other European country. While there is a large body of research on annoyance and sleep disturbance from aircraft noise, there is very limited epidemiological evidence on aircraft noise and cardiovascular disease despite good biological plausibility for noise impacts on cardiovascular and metabolic functioning. These include physiological and psychological stress responses affecting metabolic factors (e.g. glucose, insulin, body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio heart rate variability (HRV) and inflammatory pathways e.g. C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, supported by experimental studies of short-term exposure. This Medical Research Council funded study aims to investigate associations between aircraft noise near major UK airports measured in different ways (noisy events, average noise) and hospital admissions and mortality. Potential pathways and mechanisms will be further explored using cohort data, for which ethics approvals will be sought separately.
The project will use aircraft noise measures (average noise, noisy events) using data from the Civil Aviation Authority, routine mortality and hospital admission data from NHS Digital and the Office for National Statistics and analysis of individual data from two well-characterised cohorts: UK Biobank giving national coverage, and the SABRE cohort, which is based in west London. Additional data on air pollution and road noise will be sourced from SAHSU datasets and a measurement campaign will be conducted near Heathrow and Gatwick airports for ultrafine particles.
Data
ONS Mortality
NHS Digital HES
Census population from ONS
Aircraft noise, Road traffic noise and air pollution levels from Imperial and Kings study team members, the Civil Aviation Authority, Defra and national Data Air Quality Archive
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