Connection between aircraft noise and illnesses

Aircraft noise and health

Connection between aircraft noise and illnesses: Prof. Eberhard Greiser, until 2004 director of the Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS), sees a connection between night aircraft noise and drug consumption.

As the project manager and author of an epidemiological study, Greiser spoke to around 400 people on January 7, 2010 at an event of the “Pro Flörsheim” initiative in the Flörsheim town hall. In an epidemiological study, he examined the connection between nocturnal aircraft noise and drug prescriptions by resident doctors in the Rheinisch-Bergischem and Rhein-Sieg districts and in Cologne.

With their study, Greiser and his team were able to demonstrate that the prescription of certain medications such as cardiovascular medication, tranquilizers, antihypertensive drugs, sleeping pills and antidepressants increases with the intensity of nighttime aircraft noise.

The Troisdorf specialist for internal medicine and chairwoman of the "Doctors' Initiative for Undisturbed Sleep e.V." Dr. Gerda Noppeney, said in an interview with the Bonner Generalanzeiger that “the causal connection between high blood pressure and noise stress has already been scientifically proven” and “the current study corroborates these findings with its high number of cases”.

In his lecture and subsequent interviews, Greiser called for a health examination of the people living there to be carried out immediately in the affected regions. Cologne / Bonn Airport has an unrestricted night flight permit with two periods in which a particularly large number of aircraft fly: between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. and between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. (Thorsten Fischer, naturopath osteopathy 11.1.2010)

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