Sounding the alarm in public health: The case for integrating high quality noise exposure into US health studies

Transportation noise is a significant environmental pollutant routinely overlooked in public health research. This issue is particularly pronounced in the United States, where funding, oversight, and protection have been limited since the defunding of the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Noise Abatement and Control in the 1980s. Despite demonstrated health effects in Europe and globally, most health studies in the United States remain constrained by the absence of detailed community noise assessments, reliable estimates of residential noise levels, and accurate measures of individual-level noise exposures. Despite substantial expertise in epidemiology, spatial science, and acoustical engineering, significant limitations remain in studying the health effects of noise, largely due to the siloed nature of these disciplines in the United States. Here, we examine the challenges of advancing public health research on noise pollution, including challenges of convincing stakeholders of its significance, collaborations across disciplines with fundamentally different objectives, and the complexities of developing community noise exposure assessments for public health research. Through US and global case studies, with historical parallels with air pollution assessment and epidemiology, we present a forum to foster meaningful collaboration between public health professionals and acousticians.