Residential and GPS-Defined Activity Space Neighborhood Noise Complaints, Body Mass Index and Blood Pressure Among Low-Income Housing Residents in New York City

• Published in: Journal of community health Vol. 42; no. 5; pp. 974 - 982
• Main Authors: Tamura, Kosuke, Elbel, Brian, Chaix, Basile, Regan, Seann D., Al-Ajlouni, Yazan A., Athens, Jessica K., Meline, Julie, Duncan, Dustin T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer Science + Business Media 01.10.2017; Springer US; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag
• Subjects: Blood pressure; Body Composition; Body mass; Body mass index; Cardiovascular diseases; Community and Environmental Psychology; Demographics; Demography; Ethics; Global positioning systems; GPS; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Health risk assessment; Housing; Humanities and Social Sciences; Income; Low Income; Low income groups; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neighborhoods; Noise; Noise pollution; ORIGINAL PAPER; Public housing; Residential areas; Residential density; Risk analysis; Risk factors; Satellite navigation systems; Scientific Concepts; United States > US; New York City New York; Global positioning systems; Low-income housing residents; Neighborhood noise exposure; Geographic information systems; Health disparities; Neighborhood noise exposure low-income housing residents geographic information systems global positioning systems health disparities; geographic information systems; health disparities; global positioning systems; low-income housing residents
• ISSN: 0094-5145; 1573-3610
• DOI: 10.1007/s10900-017-0344-5

Little is known about how neighborhood noise influences cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among low-income populations. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between neighborhood noise complaints and body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure (BP) among low-income housing residents in New York City (NYC), including the use of global positioning system (GPS) data. Data came from the NYC Low-Income Housing, Neighborhoods and Health Study in 2014, including objectively measured BMI and BP data (N = 102, Black = 69 %), and 1 week of GPS data. Noise reports from “NYC 311” were used to create a noise complaints density (unit: 1000 reports/km²) around participants’ home and GPS-defined activity space neighborhoods. In fully-adjusted models, we examined associations of noise complaints density with BMI (kg/m²), and systolic and diastolic BP (mmHg), controlling for individual- and neighborhood-level socio-demographics. We found inverse relationships between home noise density and BMI (B = –2.7 [kg/m²], p = 0.009), and systolic BP (B = –5.3 mmHg, p = 0.008) in the fully-adjusted models, and diastolic BP (B = –3.9 mmHg, p = 0.013) in age-adjusted models. Using GPS-defined activity space neighborhoods, we observed inverse associations between noise density and systolic BP (B = –10.3 mmHg, p = 0.019) in fully-adjusted models and diastolic BP (B = –7.5 mmHg, p = 0.016) in age-adjusted model, but not with BMI. The inverse associations between neighborhood noise and CVD risk factors were unexpected. Further investigation is needed to determine if these results are affected by unobserved confounding (e.g., variations in walkability). Examining how noise could be related to CVD risk could inform effective neighborhood intervention programs for CVD risk reduction.