[Environmental sound management]

ENVIRONMENTAL SOUND MANAGEMENT. Pathologies due to a lack of environmental sound management are increasing. The management of environmental sounds - roads, trains, planes, industry - are a major public health challenge concerning the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union, and public administrations. A good understanding of environmental sounds allows to engage the right prophylactic actions, reducing the production of noise, its propagation and to protect individuals and their home f rom noise. Some regulation has recently been published requiring some sound level measures in decibel even if this notion is much less common than the measure of temperature, for example. European public administration has recommended the establishment of maps of noise, measuring the exposition in one place to environmental sounds, using average level during a period. Physicians must be able to detect symptoms of patients induced by noise management insufficiencies, to treat them, but also to explain the problematic to the patient and to give a strategy to fight efficiently.