Estimated health burden of environmental noise exceeds that of ambient air pollution in Ireland.

AIM: To quantify population health risks attributable to environmental noise in Ireland and to compare two assessment approaches, EU harmful-effects estimation and burden of disease (BoD) in terms of interpretability, data requirements and policy applicability. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Population exposure to road, rail and aircraft noise in Dublin and Cork was modelled using 2017 strategic noise mapping outputs and CNOSSOS-EU. Health impacts were estimated using harmful-effects metrics (attributable cases; numbers highly annoyed and highly sleep disturbed) and BoD metrics (years lived with disability, YLD; disability-adjusted life years, DALY). Uncertainty and sensitivity were assessed by propagating parameter uncertainty in exposure-response functions and by testing the influence of key exposure-model assumptions on attributable outcomes. RESULTS: In 2017, environmental noise exposure was associated with 256 attributable cases of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and 3,445 IHD DALYs; 296,471 cases of high annoyance (HA) and 5,866 HA YLDs; and 109,951 cases of high sleep disturbance (HSD) and 4,780 HSD YLDs. In total, 14,091 DALYs were attributable to noise exposure, exceeding the burden estimated for ambient air pollution and some dietary risks in comparable population-health assessments. CONCLUSION: Environmental noise represents a substantial yet under-recognised public health risk in Ireland. Harmful-effects estimation provides efficient, policy-ready outputs for END reporting and action planning, while BoD estimation supports cross-risk prioritisation in public health. The findings support stronger integration of noise within national environmental health governance and routine health risk assessment.