Environmental Transport Noise and Health: Evidence from Ireland (Noise–Health)

Noise is found everywhere, particularly in urban areas, and is part of daily living and activity. However, noise can be a serious risk to public health and wellbeing. This report outlines key policy and practice recommendations for managing environmental noise in Ireland. It also details how “noise–health” considerations can be better incorporated into Irish policy.

Identifying Pressures

Noise is found everywhere, particularly in urban areas, and is part of daily living and activity. However, noise can be a serious risk to public health and wellbeing. While there appears to be a strong association between transport noise and health and wellbeing, significant gaps exist in the literature. Even more pertinent is the lack of an evidence base for the harm and burden of disease caused by environmental noise at the national level to inform policy. This report addresses these knowledge gaps. First, while there is recognition of the relationship between noise and health, there is a more limited understanding of dose–effect mechanisms and of the cause and effect relationships. Second, the scale of the problem in Ireland is poorly understood, complicating the integration of noise considerations into relevant health, transport and planning policies. These could be addressed by combining the fine-grained microdata available from this study with noise modelling data at the city scale.

Informing Policy

This report outlines key policy and practice recommendations for managing environmental noise in Ireland. It also details how “noise–health” considerations can be better incorporated into Irish policy. These recommendations aim to strengthen the capacity of Irish policymakers to design, apply and supervise effective and systematic policies in this area.

Developing Solutions

This report presents evidence-based solutions and recommended interventions that have the potential to unlock unsustainable practices in relation to environmental noise mitigation and health. In doing so the report (1) supplies the evidence base to establish the links between environmental noise and health; (2) provides a benchmark study of the existing disease burden from environmental noise to establish a baseline noise–health disease burden that can be reduced in future through improved national practice and appropriate policy solutions; (3) undertakes applied city-based research to understand the causal relationship between noise and health so that targeted policy interventions can be established; (4) uses this knowledge to develop innovative guidance and evidence-informed noise mitigation solutions for reducing people’s exposure to environmental noise.