Is it bad to live near a busy road?

Is it bad to live near a busy road?

For many people it is not a problem they notice day to day, but studies of whole populations do link long-term road traffic noise to more annoyance, more disturbed sleep and a small group-level increase in the risk of heart disease. That is group-level evidence. It cannot tell you what will happen to you or in your home, and we give no medical advice.

Plenty of people live beside busy roads without difficulty. What follows sets out what the main authorities say, how strong they judge the evidence to be, and what you can check about a particular home.

What does the World Health Organization recommend?

The World Health Organization's Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region (2018) strongly recommend reducing road traffic noise below 53 dB Lden and night-time road traffic noise below 45 dB Lnight. The guidelines say the night-time level is set because noise above it is associated with adverse effects on sleep. Lden is an annual day-evening-night average and Lnight is the night-time average, and our guide to Lden and Lnight explains both.

WHO describes a strong recommendation as one that "can be adopted as policy in most situations". That is a statement about policy for populations, not a line that makes any individual home safe on one side and unsafe on the other. Our guide to the WHO guidelines goes through the other noise sources.

What does the evidence say, outcome by outcome?

WHO's guideline process included separate systematic reviews, each of which graded how certain the evidence was. For heart disease, van Kempen and colleagues (2018) found a relative risk of 1.08 (95% confidence interval 1.01 to 1.15) per 10 dB Lden of road traffic noise for new cases (incidence) of ischaemic heart disease. The authors rated the quality of evidence for incidence as high, and for road traffic noise and ischaemic heart disease overall as moderate.

This is an association found in groups. A relative risk of 1.08 is a small group-level increase, and it is not proof that noise caused heart disease in any one person. The same review rated the evidence for road noise and high blood pressure as very low and for stroke as low.

For sleep, the sleep review rated the quality of evidence as moderate for road traffic noise and both cortical awakenings and self-reported sleep disturbance, with the self-reported result rated that way only where the survey question referred to noise. For annoyance, the review rated the evidence for how the share of highly annoyed people rises with road noise level as low, and for the link between noise levels and annoyance scores as moderate.

For children's learning, the cognition review found very low quality evidence for an effect of road traffic noise on memory, and very low quality evidence for no substantial effect on reading and oral comprehension. In plain terms, heart disease incidence has the highest rating (high). The sleep measures (cortical awakenings and noise-referenced self-reported disturbance) and the annoyance-score correlation are moderate, and most other outcomes are low or very low.

What do UK health bodies say?

Defra's Noise Action Plan: Roads (2019) says noise causes sleep disturbance and annoyance, and that there is growing evidence that long-term exposure to high levels is associated with illnesses like heart attacks and strokes. It notes WHO recognises noise as one of the top environmental hazards to health and wellbeing in Europe.

In a June 2023 blog, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reported on a study of 2018 data. It said around 100,000 years of good health (disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs) were lost in England to road traffic noise in that year, most of it through chronic annoyance and sleep disturbance, and that about 40% of adults were exposed to long-term average road traffic noise above 50 dB. UKHSA added that its estimates may be conservative, and that health effects are more likely to be detected above 50 dB Lden, around the level of a quiet street.

Why this is not a prediction for your home

Every figure above describes groups of people over many years. Two households on the same road can differ in how much noise reaches the bedroom, how they use their windows, how much time they spend at home and how much the noise bothers them.

Defra's maps give outdoor levels modelled at 4 m above ground, and WHO's figures are annual averages. What you experience indoors depends on which side the bedrooms face, the glazing and whether windows are open. Air quality is a separate issue that noise maps do not show, and it is outside this page.

What can you do about it?

Start with the modelled level at the address, and look at the night-time figure if sleep matters to you. Then find out which side of the building the bedrooms are on, since a bedroom facing away from the road is not in the same position as one facing it.

If the level is a worry, our guides on how much windows reduce road noise and the best fence or wall for road noise set out the options and what the evidence supports. Check an address gives a modelled estimate of road and rail noise with a plain-language rating, to use alongside a visit at different times of day.

Limits of this evidence

Most of the studies compare groups, so they show links rather than proving that noise caused a particular illness in a particular person. WHO's own ratings range from high to very low depending on the outcome, and we have quoted them so you can see where the evidence is firm and where it is thin.

The UKHSA figures are estimates based on 2018 data, and UKHSA says its study only included roads with high traffic volumes. We have not tried to say how much risk any particular level carries for you, and we cannot say whether noise at your address is good or bad for your health.