Long-term exposure to noise causes 41,000 new cases of heart disease and 11,000 premature deaths in Europe every year, the European Environment Agency (EEA) estimates in a document published this Wednesday.
Due to the noise of transport, the organization says, there are at least 18 million extremely irritable Europeans and five million with serious sleep disorders.
The data is part of a series of documents published this Wednesday by the EEA related to the environment and health in the European Union, generically titled “AEA Signals 2023 — Health and Environment in Europe” — Health and environment in Europe).
In the document on noise, the Agency reminds that it is more present than ever in people’s lives and that long-term exposure is not only unpleasant, but also causes physical and mental problems, especially for people living in cities.
Traffic noise is “a particularly serious problem in Europe”, affecting the health and well-being of one in five people, and this noise can lead to ischemic heart disease, obesity or diabetes in the long term.
Overall, about 20% of the European population is exposed to long-term noise, which is harmful to health, says the EEA, which warns that the number of people affected may be underestimated, as information from Member States does not cover all zones of urban areas, roads, railways and airports, not all noise sources.
The EU aims to reduce the number of people who are chronically disturbed by traffic noise by 30% by 2030 (compared to 2017), equivalent to a reduction of 5.3 million people who are severely disturbed by noise.
The publication “EEA Signals 2023” contains documents on the relationships between health and the quality of air, water, climate change and chemicals.
While emphasizing the positive developments, the Agency warns that air pollution poses the greatest risk to environmental health globally and in Europe. In Europe alone, it is responsible for around 300,000 preventable deaths each year.
Almost all European urban dwellers are exposed to particulate matter pollution above the World Health Organization reference level. The EEA notes that the number of deaths due to particulate pollution has almost halved over the past 10 to 15 years.
In water, the documents refer, there is new evidence that micropollutants, microplastics and antimicrobial resistance affect water quality.
Over-exploitation of water “can negatively impact human health,” raising concerns about contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, metals or pesticides.
In groundwater, which provides about 65% of the EU’s drinking water, chemical contamination has been found in about a quarter of these waters, and 10% have unsustainable abstraction levels. Between 04 and 11% of the waters analyzed contained excessive levels of one or more pesticides.
And some of the chemicals used in pesticides can cause diseases such as diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, the documents warn, citing a study that found 84% of people tested among thousands of volunteers had at least two different pesticides in their blood.
More than 90% of participants had bisphenol A in their bodies and more than 60% had substitutes for this synthetic compound, says the EEA, adding that more than 17% of children and adolescents in the EU are at risk of exposure to phthalates, another chemical used, like bisphenol, in plastics.
“Europe continues to produce and consume large quantities of chemicals, some of which may harm the environment or human health,” the Agency warns.
And people’s health is also affected by heat waves, droughts, fires and floods, causes of climate change, says the EEA, according to which heat waves are the biggest direct threat to the health of the European population in relation to the climate.
It is estimated that heat waves have caused about 90% of deaths from extreme weather and climate-related events in Europe over the past four decades.
Source: DN
