Weekly Data Story
The title is to this post is not very shocking to New York City residents or tourists. A stroll through the Financial District or West Village and most people yearn for noise cancelling headphones. Besides the general discomfort that loud noises create for people, there is a general correlation between noise and health. Noise pollution impacts mental and physical health.
For example, the impacts on physical health can be tinnitus, paracusis and a distorted loudness perception. Other studies also show that it can contribute to raised blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease. As for mental health, loud noises can contribute to difficulty with sleep hygiene and the quality of the sleep. As we know for many people, a bad night’s sleep can lead to alter mood changes.
So for this week’s post, we downloaded noise data from USDOT for 2018 version. The spatial patterns that emerged that the loudest noises emanated from infrastructure sites such as roads, airports and industrial sites. In particular, the JFK airport on the southeast part of the city contributes a substantial amount of noise to the surrounding neighborhoods. One of the most alarming things about this map that it identifies noise pollution that register above 85 decibels. To put it in perspective, anything about 65 decibels is considered a noise that is harmful to your health. Overall, it seems like a large percent of New York City population is exposed to harmful noise impacts throughout their day.
Authors: Jose Pillich & Ryan Kmetz
