Reduce noise: Enhance health equity-An AAN Consensus Paper

A growing body of epidemiological studies shows that noise increases the risk for broad-ranging physiological and psychological illnesses. According to the World Health Organization, at least 1.6 million healthy years of life are lost annually in Western Europe due to traffic noise alone. Scholars from selected Expert Panels of the American Academy of Nursing convened to update the information regarding the effects of environmental noise on health disparities, physiological changes in the human body and in animals, and environmental justice issues, and to inform the public and policy makers' efforts to guide development of new policies and their enforcement. The authors include recommendations to protect communities from the health consequences of exposure to environmental noise and advance health equity. By enacting these recommendations, nurses and other health care professionals working in all settings can protect the public from exposure to hazardous environmental noise, particularly among minoritized, marginalized, and at-risk populations.