Photo credit: Loozrboy licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coaltion
This wonderful article from Futurism.com discusses the major problem of noise pollution as the nation and the world become increasingly urbanized.
Few remember that in the U.S., government policy, as voted by Congress and signed into law, was “to promote an environment for all Americans free from noise that jeopardizes their health and welfare.”
The article’s author, Neel V. Patel, cites extensively noise pioneer and The Quiet Coalition co-founder and board member Arline Bronzaft, PhD, who 45 years ago showed that environmental noise interfered with children’s learning.
As Patel writes:
It’s impossible to overstate how much noise pollution can wreak havoc on human health and safety. High noise levels can exacerbate hypertension, cause insomnia or sleep disturbances, result in hearing loss, and worsen a plethora of other medical conditions. All of these problems can aggravate other health issues by inducing higher levels of stress, which can cascade into worsened immune systems, heart problems, increased anxiety and depression — the list just goes on and on.
We at The Quiet Coalition agree. So click the first link, read Patel’s article, and learn how the U.S. government’s active failure to regulate noise since 1981 all but guarantees that noise is the next great public health crisis.
