Aims

The number of people exposed to wind turbine noise (WTN) is increasing. WTN is reported as more annoying than traffic noise at similar levels. Long-term exposure to traffic noise has consistently been associated with cardiovascular disease, whereas effects of short-term exposure are much less investigated due to little day-to-day variation of e.g. road traffic noise. WTN varies considerably due to changing weather conditions allowing investigation of short-term effects of WTN on cardiovascular events.

Methods and results

We identified all hospitalisations and deaths from stroke (16,913 cases) and myocardial infarction (MI) (17,559 cases) among Danes exposed to WTN between 1982 and 2013. We applied a time-stratified, case-crossover design. Using detailed data on wind turbine type and hourly wind data at each wind turbine, we simulated mean nighttime outdoor (10–10,000 Hz) and nighttime low frequency (LF) indoor WTN (10–160 Hz) over the 4 days preceding diagnosis and reference days. For indoor LF WTN between 10 and 15 dB(A) and above 15 dB(A), odds ratios (ORs) for MI were 1.27 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.97–1.67; cases = 198) and 1.62 (95% CI: 0.76–3.45; cases = 21), respectively, when compared to indoor LF WTN below 5 dB(A). For stroke, corresponding ORs were 1.17 (95% CI: 0.95–1.69; cases = 166) and 2.30 (95% CI: 0.96–5.50; cases = 15). The elevated ORs above 15 dB(A) persisted across sensitivity analyses. When looking at specific lag times, noise exposure one day before MI events and three days before stroke events were associated with the highest ORs. For outdoor WTN at night, we observed both increased and decreased risk estimates.

Conclusion

This study did not provide conclusive evidence of an association between WTN and MI or stroke. It does however suggest that indoor LF WTN at night may trigger cardiovascular events, whereas these events seemed largely unaffected by nighttime outdoor WTN. These findings need reproduction, as they were based on few cases and may be due to chance.

中文翻译：

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短期夜间风力涡轮机的噪音和心血管事件：丹麦的一项全国性病例研究

目的

暴露于风力涡轮机噪声（WTN）的人数正在增加。据报道，WTN比类似级别的交通噪音更令人讨厌。长期暴露于交通噪声中一直与心血管疾病有关，而短期暴露的影响由于例如道路交通噪声的日常变化很小而得到的研究较少。由于天气条件的变化，WTN差异很大，因此可以研究WTN对心血管事件的短期影响。

方法与结果

我们确定了1982年至2013年间接触WTN的丹麦人因中风（16,913例）和心肌梗塞（MI）（17,559例）的所有住院和死亡病例。我们采用了时间分层，病例交叉的设计。使用有关风力涡轮机类型的详细数据和每个风力涡轮机的每小时风速数据，我们在诊断和参考之前的4天中模拟了室外的平均夜间（10–10,000 Hz）和夜间的低频（LF）室内WTN（10–160 Hz）天。对于介于10和15 dB（A）之间且高于15 dB（A）的室内LF WTN，MI的优势比（OR）为1.27（95％置信区间（CI）：0.97-1.67；案例= 198）和1.62（95与低于5 dB（A）的室内LF WTN相比，CI的百分比：0.76-3.45；案例= 21）。对于中风，相应的OR为1.17（95％CI：0.95-1.69；病例= 166）和2.30（95％CI：0.96-5.50；病例= 15）。在灵敏度分析中，高于15 dB（A）的升高的OR持续存在。当查看特定的滞后时间时，MI事件发生前1天和中风事件发生前3天的噪声暴露与最高OR相关。对于夜间的室外WTN，我们观察到了风险估计值的升高和降低。

结论

这项研究没有提供WTN与MI或中风之间关联的确凿证据。但是，这确实表明，夜间室内LF WTN可能触发心血管事件，而这些事件似乎在很大程度上不受夜间室外WTN的影响。这些发现需要重现，因为它们基于少数情况，可能是偶然的缘故。