Noise is associated with anxiety –

NEW YORK (HealthDay News)—Children exposed to traffic and other noise in their neighborhoods may be at higher risk for anxiety, while air pollution may increase the risk of other mental health problems.

“Exposure to noise pollution in childhood and adolescence may increase anxiety by increasing stress and disrupting sleep,” says the team led by Joanne Newbury of Bristol Medical School in the United Kingdom.

The findings are published in the journal “JAMA Network Open.”

In the study, the Newbury group looked at data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which tracked the health of children born in England between 1991 and 1993. A total of 9,065 provided data on their mental health in adulthood. One in five admitted to a history of psychosis, 11.4% to depression and 9.7% to anxiety.

Researchers note that children who were exposed to noise pollution in their neighborhoods during childhood and/or adolescence had a 20 percent higher odds of anxiety as they grew older.

Neighborhood air pollution was also a risk factor for mental health problems: Children exposed to relatively high levels of particulate matter (bits of pollution that enter the lungs) while still in the womb were 11 percent more likely to have psychosis, compared with those without such exposures, and 10 percent more likely to have depression.

The researchers stress that the data could not prove that noise or air pollution contribute to causing mental disorders, only that there is an association.

Still, there could be solid reasons behind noise’s effect on the developing mind. In addition to reducing much-needed sleep for children, neighborhood noise “might also affect[a child’s]cognition, which could increase anxiety by impairing concentration during the school years,” Newbury’s group believes.

As for air pollution, the toxins that mothers breathe during pregnancy could affect the “extensive brain development” that is occurring in the fetus and in infancy, the team notes.

“Exposure to air pollution could also lead to restricted fetal growth and premature birth, which are risk factors for psychopathology.”

If fetal and childhood noise and air pollution impact mental health trajectories, then minimizing those toxins could have a “potentially huge” impact, the researchers note.

Meanwhile, “there is now a pressing need for more longitudinal research” on these connections, they admit.