Noise Can Damage Your Health!
Noise doesn't just annoy: it can damage your health. It's not just a temporary nuisance: noise is a public health issue. The following new article was written by my friend Liz Ernst for Acoustiblok, Incorporated; and features my friend Dr. Arline Bronzaft, Ph.D., Psychologist, Author, and Speaker.
Dr. Bronzaft is an accomplished authority on noise and health. She has a Ph.D. in Psychology and she has taught at Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY), and she has served as an expert witness on the impacts of noise. Dr. Bronzaft is currently a team member of GrowNYC, which was formerly called the Council On The Environment of New York City.
Liz Ernst is Director of Public Relations for Acoustiblok, Incorporated.
See below for details on my friend Dr. Bronzaft's new book, WHY NOISE MATTERS.
From this month's article at Acoustiblok, Inc.:
[...]
To deal with noise here at The Daily Decibel, I primarily use ear plugs. I recommend at least an NRR (Noise Reduction Rating) of 29dB. That's protection to block 29 decibels of sound from outside of the ears. My favorite ear plugs are HEAROS Xtreme Protection ear plugs. They have an NRR 33. That means they block 33 decibels of sound from the outside environment. I quite often use them to block the noise of gasoline-powered leaf blowers. (Loud gasoline-powered leaf blowers are used every day -- including many Sundays -- on my street. As there is no noise law AT ALL regarding leaf blower use in my city*, there is consequently no respite for the noise, and most of the time I resort to wearing ear plugs.)
Related Content by Dr. Arline Bronzaft, Ph.D.
Quiet Regards,
Todd at The Daily Decibel
*My city does NOT have ANY noise law AT ALL regarding the use of leaf blowers or construction tools, whether gasoline-powered or electric-powered. But even there were such a code, who would enforce it? That's a whole separate issue. There's only one (1) city in this geographical area that enforces leaf blower use: Newport Beach, California. But is the prohibition solving the noise problem? We suggest you contact the Newport Beach Mayor.
--
Permalink: http://www.thedailydecibel.com/2012/06/noise-public-health-priority.html
Noise doesn't just annoy: it can damage your health. It's not just a temporary nuisance: noise is a public health issue. The following new article was written by my friend Liz Ernst for Acoustiblok, Incorporated; and features my friend Dr. Arline Bronzaft, Ph.D., Psychologist, Author, and Speaker.
Dr. Bronzaft is an accomplished authority on noise and health. She has a Ph.D. in Psychology and she has taught at Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY), and she has served as an expert witness on the impacts of noise. Dr. Bronzaft is currently a team member of GrowNYC, which was formerly called the Council On The Environment of New York City.
Liz Ernst is Director of Public Relations for Acoustiblok, Incorporated.
See below for details on my friend Dr. Bronzaft's new book, WHY NOISE MATTERS.
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| Noise doesn't just annoy -- it can degrade our health: males and females |
In New York City, noise is the number one quality-of-life complaint. Arline Bronzaft, a psychologist who studies noise, is a member of New York’s Council on the Environment, and helped rewrite the city’s noise code in recent years. It was Bronzaft’s landmark 1970s research that brought attention to the noise of elevated train tracks, which hampered the academic performance of children in nearby schools. In July 2007, the first new noise codes in New York in more than 30 years went into effect, regulating construction noise, air-conditioner noise, garbage truck grinding and even music from bars and restaurants. That’s right, taxi drivers are no longer permitted to lean on their horns except in situations of “imminent danger.”
Today, urban landscapes can be so noisy that ornithologists have discovered birds warbling at the top of their lungs to be heard. Nightingales in Berlin have been documented singing up to 14 decibels louder than their relatives in quieter surroundings, in an attempt to be heard above all the city noise Yet the cacophony of modern life is hardly confined to metropolises like New York or Cairo, Egypt, where you literally have to shout on the street to make yourself heard.
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| Can someone please turn down the noise? Arrgh! |
[...]
Even scarier is the fact that noise affects your health, even when you sleep through it.
Scientists at Imperial College London monitored the blood pressure of 140 sleeping volunteers who lived near London’s Heathrow airport. Their research discovered that the volunteers’ blood pressure rose when a plane few overhead, even while the volunteer slept. Another study of 5,000, 45-to-70-year-olds living near airports for five years or longer found that they were at greater risk of suffering from hypertension / high blood pressure than their peers in quieter communities. In 2007, the World Health Organization estimated that long-term exposure to traffic noise may account for three percent of deaths from ischemic heart disease among Europeans.
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| Airplanes can make a large amount of noise -- even during boarding time |
To deal with noise here at The Daily Decibel, I primarily use ear plugs. I recommend at least an NRR (Noise Reduction Rating) of 29dB. That's protection to block 29 decibels of sound from outside of the ears. My favorite ear plugs are HEAROS Xtreme Protection ear plugs. They have an NRR 33. That means they block 33 decibels of sound from the outside environment. I quite often use them to block the noise of gasoline-powered leaf blowers. (Loud gasoline-powered leaf blowers are used every day -- including many Sundays -- on my street. As there is no noise law AT ALL regarding leaf blower use in my city*, there is consequently no respite for the noise, and most of the time I resort to wearing ear plugs.)
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| A person fitting an ear plug inside the ear canal |
Related Content by Dr. Arline Bronzaft, Ph.D.
- NEW Book: WHY NOISE MATTERS - Available at Amazon dot com
- Quiet Skies - Coalition of concerned citizens regarding airport noise, featuring Dr. Bronzaft
- Park Noise - by Dr. Arline Bronzaft, Ph.D.
- Dr. Arline Bronzaft Interviewed by The Woman's Connection
- Noise And Health Studies by Dr. Arline Bronzaft, Ph.D.
- Dr. Bronzaft Discusses the Impacts of Noise -- from www.GrowNYC.org
- Listen To The Raindrops: A Children's Book, by Dr. Arline Bronzaft, available at Amazon dot com
- Video Interview: Dr. Bronzaft on Noise
Quiet Regards,
Todd at The Daily Decibel
*My city does NOT have ANY noise law AT ALL regarding the use of leaf blowers or construction tools, whether gasoline-powered or electric-powered. But even there were such a code, who would enforce it? That's a whole separate issue. There's only one (1) city in this geographical area that enforces leaf blower use: Newport Beach, California. But is the prohibition solving the noise problem? We suggest you contact the Newport Beach Mayor.
--
Permalink: http://www.thedailydecibel.com/2012/06/noise-public-health-priority.html
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