Dose-response relationship between aircraft noise and annoyance around an airport in Japan

Environmental noise is supposed to be one of the risk factors for ischemic heart disease. The risk is assumed to be raised by some mental stress, so-called distress in this case. The stress is caused by the feeling of annoyance that is conduced by interpretation with individual value. Therefore, the annoyance from environmental noise shows an association with the stress scores measured by psychological scales. On the other hand, the heart disease also has many risk factors for its induction. The physical predisposition such as hypercholesteria or hypertension and the lifestyle including smoking or eating habits are the major risk factors for its onset. Naturally, these individual risk factors cannot be regulated by any environmental noise controls. From a view point of cost-effectiveness for public health, it is important to evaluate the contribution of environmental noise to ischemic heart disease (IHD) induction in contrast with the other individual factors.