Environ Res. 2026 Jun 5:124921. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2026.124921. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
The United States has not produced a national noise health burden estimate using disability-adjusted life year methodology. We quantified the population health burden of transportation noise across the contiguous United States and examined its distribution across states and socially vulnerable communities. We applied comparative risk assessment to census-tract noise exposure data from the National Transportation Noise Exposure Map for 324.4 million residents. We estimated attributable ischemic heart disease, ischemic stroke, cardiomyopathy, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular mortality, high annoyance, and high sleep disturbance using exposure-response functions from WHO systematic reviews. We calculated disability-adjusted life years with WHO 2024 noise-specific disability weights, stratified by state and CDC Social Vulnerability Index quintile, with 12-parameter Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis. An estimated 94.5 million people were exposed to transportation noise at or above 45 dB LAeq. We attributed 272,600 DALYs annually (84 per 100,000; 95% UI: 45-121), including 6,330 premature cardiovascular deaths, 11,400 ischemic heart disease cases, 13,600 type 2 diabetes cases, 12.3 million highly annoyed, and 3.3 million with high sleep disturbance. State burden varied six-fold, from 25 to 149 DALYs per 100,000. Communities in the highest social vulnerability quintile bore 2.29 times the burden of the least vulnerable. This is the first US noise burden estimate using WHO DALY methodology with social vulnerability stratification. The equity disparity identifies target populations for noise reduction. Disability weights for annoyance (30%) and road noise fraction (32%) are the two largest contributors to DALY variance, followed by sleep disturbance disability weight (14%) and the LAeq-to-Lden offset (11%), pointing to source-specific noise mapping, larger valuation studies, and standardized metric conversion as priorities.
PMID:42250846 | DOI:10.1016/j.envres.2026.124921