10 / 2021-05-25 20:35:59

Associations‌ ‌between‌ ‌exposure‌ ‌to‌ ‌road‌ ‌ traffic‌ ‌noise‌ ‌and‌ ‌particulate‌ ‌matter‌ ‌and‌ ‌ the‌ ‌prevalence‌ ‌of‌ ‌depression‌ ‌in‌ ‌Taichung‌

Cross-sectional study; Depression; Particulate matter; Prevalence; Road traffic noise

Background: The World Health Organization has reported that the prevalence of mental illness is 4% of the global population. Some studies have been associated depression symptoms with exposure to road traffic noise and particulate matter (PM), but results are inconsistent.

Objective: This cross-sectional study investigated the associations between exposure to road traffic noise and particulate matter with the prevalent depression and the potential synergistic effect.

Methods: This study included 3,200 residents living in the Taichung area participated in the Taiwan Biobank as the study subjects. Their residential addresses were replaced with 29 administrative offices in the district due to individual confidential concern. We used land-use regression model to evaluate the annual average levels of road traffic noise and particulate matter. The logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate the odds ratio (OR) of prevalent depression after adjustments of possible confounding factors.

Results: The annual average levels of 24-hour noise, night-time noise, PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ were 68.1±3.7dBA, 62.4±2.1dBA, 32.4±5.4μg/m³ and 70.4±12.8μg/m³, respectively. The prevalence of depression was 3.2%. After adjusting for confounding factors, per 1-dBA increase in 24-hr noise was associated with the increased risk of 1.11 (95%CI=1.01-1.21), and per 1-μg/m³ increase in PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ was associated with the elevated risk of 1.02 (95% CI =0.97-1.07) and 1.01 (95%CI=0.99-1.04), respectively. Traffic noise is still significantly associated with the depression even after adjusting for PM_2.5 (OR=1.109; 95%CI=1.007-1.221). Exposre to ≥ 69.3 dBA in 24-hr noise and ≥ 32.9 µg/m³ in PM_2.5 has found a significantly higher risk of depression (OR=2.151; 95%CI=1.244-3.721).

Conclusion: Our study found that exposure to road traffic noise was related to the increased risk of depression prevalence. The synergistic effect was identified with PM_2.5 exposure.