“The results are strengthened by the authors controlling for levels of traffic pollution, which was recently shown to be associated with dementia as well as other diseases.”
Skimming the article [0], it looks like they compared outcomes of people who lived closer to the road against people who lived farther away from the road, in the same building.
I think the idea is that people living in the same building should all have roughly the same particulate and pollution exposure, but people living on a road-facing side of the building will have more exposure to road noise. It's an extremely clever study design.
If the assumption is that people in the same building have the same exposure to pollution but differential exposure to noise based on distance, I would prefer that it were tested. I am sceptical that this is the case, as I would expect folk on the road facing side to be exposed to more particulates and pollution and noise.
That's a good point, and I didn't read far enough in the paper to see if they tested that assumption or not. It seems like they developed some kind of model of noise exposure as a function of elevation and proximity to the road, so it's possible they developed a similar model for pollution.
Comments
The article says:
“The results are strengthened by the authors controlling for levels of traffic pollution, which was recently shown to be associated with dementia as well as other diseases.”
How can you possibly control for traffic pollution in a way that is independent from traffic noise?
Skimming the article [0], it looks like they compared outcomes of people who lived closer to the road against people who lived farther away from the road, in the same building.
I think the idea is that people living in the same building should all have roughly the same particulate and pollution exposure, but people living on a road-facing side of the building will have more exposure to road noise. It's an extremely clever study design.
0: https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1954
If the assumption is that people in the same building have the same exposure to pollution but differential exposure to noise based on distance, I would prefer that it were tested. I am sceptical that this is the case, as I would expect folk on the road facing side to be exposed to more particulates and pollution and noise.
That's a good point, and I didn't read far enough in the paper to see if they tested that assumption or not. It seems like they developed some kind of model of noise exposure as a function of elevation and proximity to the road, so it's possible they developed a similar model for pollution.
With ear plugs apparently. But then you have an entirely different control problem.
We dont have an accurate assessment of traffic pollution or air pollution in general. Thanks 'regulatory agencies'