TY - JOUR T1 - Work in brief JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med SP - 71 LP - 71 VL - 64 IS - 2 AU - Keith Palmer Y1 - 2007/02/01 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/64/2/71.2.abstract N2 - The relationship between road traffic noise and blood pressure is controversial. Theory has it that stress, arising from persistent exposure to vehicle noise, could cause permanent vascular changes leading to established hypertension, but the evidence supporting this hypothesis is fairly weak. Bluhm et al1 report new findings in a population sample of adults from a Swedish municipality near Stockholm. The diagnosis of hypertension was established by postal questionnaire, while the outdoor equivalent traffic noise level (Leq 24 h) at the residence of each respondent was determined using noise-dispersion models and manual noise assessments. The odds of hypertension increased almost 1.4 fold per 5 A-weighted decibels … ER -