Environment/Climate Change
Association between noise pollution exposure and incident breast cancer in the Sister Study Brittney Gedeon* Brittney Gedeon Che-Jung Chang Rena R. Jones Peter James Dale P. Sandler Alexandra J. White
Background: Noise exposure may negatively impact sleep and the autonomic nervous system, potentially influencing the risk of developing cancer. European studies have observed modest positive associations between anthropogenic noise exposure and breast cancer incidence. Studies have not evaluated this in the United States, where sources and levels of noise may differ.
Objective: To examine the association between residential noise exposure and incident breast cancer.
Methods: We included 49,405 participants enrolled between 2003-2009 in the Sister Study, an ongoing prospective cohort of women 35-74 years of age at baseline living in the United States. Median daytime and nighttime anthropogenic noise at the participants’ baseline residence were estimated by a U.S. National Park Service noise model. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate HRs and 95% CIs for the association between an interquartile range (daytime IQR=5.2dB, nighttime IQR=4.0dB) difference in noise and incident breast cancer. Models were adjusted for age as the timescale, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, area deprivation, and urbanicity-related variables.
Results: During an average of 12.4 years of follow-up, 4,507 breast cancers were diagnosed. We observed no association between an IQR increase in daytime (HR: 1.02, 95% CI: 0.97, 1.07) or nighttime (HR: 1.00, 95% CI: 0.97, 1.04) noise and breast cancer incidence. However, we found an association between the 4th quartile of daytime noise and elevated breast cancer incidence (HRQ4 vs Q1:1.12, 95% CI: 0.99, 1.27).
Conclusions: In this large prospective cohort of U.S. women, we observed no overall associations between noise and breast cancer incidence except a possible association with the highest exposure level of daytime noise. More research incorporating improved exposure assessment is needed to determine whether noise is related to breast cancer incidence.
