Disability weights for noise-related health states in the WHO European Region

Overview

Following the publication of the 2018 Environmental noise guidelines for the European Region, WHO set out to update environmental noise related disability weights to enhance health risk assessment in the field. The “European noise disability weights measurement study”, on which this report is based, aimed to derive disability weights for several environmental and non-environmental noise related health states using standardized and comparable methods. A nationally representative sample survey was administered in the general populations of four countries of the WHO European Region – Hungary, Italy, Netherlands (‎Kingdom of the)‎ and Sweden. Disability weights for moderate and severe annoyance were estimated to be 0.006 and 0.011, respectively. The disability weight for sleep disturbance was estimated to be 0.009. The set of European noise disability weights is a valuable resource for use in future environment-related health risk assessments across the WHO European Region and beyond.