title: Years of life lost and morbidity cases attributable to transportation noise and air pollution: A comparative health risk assessment for Switzerland in 2010.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is growing evidence that chronic exposure to transportation related noise and air pollution affects human health. However, health burden to a country of these two pollutants have been rarely compared.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  As an input for external cost quantification, we estimated the cardiorespiratory health burden from transportation related noise and air pollution in Switzerland, incorporating the most recent findings related to the health effects of noise.
  
  
  METHODS
  Spatially resolved noise and air pollution models for the year 2010 were derived for road, rail and aircraft sources. Average day-evening-night sound level (Lden) and particulate matter (PM10) were selected as indicators, and population-weighted exposures derived by transportation source. Cause-specific exposure-response functions were derived from a meta-analysis for noise and literature review for PM10. Years of life lost (YLL) were calculated using life table methods; population attributable fraction was used for deriving attributable cases for hospitalisations, respiratory illnesses, visits to general practitioners and restricted activity days.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean population weighted exposure above a threshold of 48dB(A) was 8.74dB(A), 1.89dB(A) and 0.37dB(A) for road, rail and aircraft noise. Corresponding mean exposure contributions were 4.4, 0.54, 0.12μg/m(3) for PM10. We estimated that in 2010 in Switzerland transportation caused 6000 and 14,000 YLL from noise and air pollution exposure, respectively. While there were a total of 8700 cardiorespiratory hospital days attributed to air pollution exposure, estimated burden due to noise alone amounted to 22,500 hospital days.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  YLL due to transportation related pollution in Switzerland is dominated by air pollution from road traffic, whereas consequences for morbidity and indicators of quality of life are dominated by noise. In terms of total external costs the burden of noise equals that of air pollution.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Petersplatz 1, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland. Electronic address: danielle.vienneau@unibas.ch.
authors.forename: Danielle
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vienneau
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Petersplatz 1, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Perez
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Petersplatz 1, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schindler
authors.affiliation: ECOPLAN, Monbijoustrasse 14, CH-3011 Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lieb
authors.affiliation: ECOPLAN, Schützengasse 1, CH-6460 Altdorf, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Heini
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sommer
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Petersplatz 1, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Probst-Hensch
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Petersplatz 1, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Nino
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Künzli
authors.affiliation: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland; University of Basel, Petersplatz 1, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Röösli
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000191:economics; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000191:economics / Q000209:etiology; D017281:Cost of Illness; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009624:Noise, Transportation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000191:economics; D052638:Particulate Matter / Q000633:toxicity; D011788:Quality of Life; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology; D014186:Transportation / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
chemical_list: D052638:Particulate Matter
keywords: Air pollution; Burden of disease; External costs; Health impact assessment; Noise; Transportation