The Price of Noise: An Order-of-Magnitude Economic Assessment of Environmental Noise from a Planetary Health Perspective

Environmental noise has emerged as a pervasive yet frequently underestimated environmental stressor with consequences for biodiversity, public health, and societal well-being. Although a substantial body of epidemiological research has linked chronic transportation-related noise exposure with cardiovascular disease, sleep disturbance, psychological distress, impaired cognitive performance, and premature mortality, comparatively few studies have estimated its broader economic burden within a planetary health framework. This study presents an exploratory order-of-magnitude economic valuation based on a large-cohort epidemiological risk-transfer scenario. A hazard-ratio-based framework was applied to estimate noise-attributable mortality among populations subjected to road traffic environmental noise levels above 60 dB. Both tangible costs, representing forgone economic productivity, and intangible costs, representing societal welfare losses using the Value of a Statistical Life framework, were estimated. Under baseline assumptions, chronic transportation-related environmental noise was associated with approximately 27,692 annual attributable deaths—when applying a hazard-based ratio—estimated annual productivity losses of approximately US$7.28 billion and welfare losses valued at approximately US$353.91 billion under the Value of a Statistical Life framework. These findings suggest that chronic transportation-related environmental noise represents a potentially important, though often overlooked, environmental externality with substantial health and economic implications. The proposed framework provides an initial basis for future research evaluating the wellbeing, societal, and economic magnitude of environmental noise within a planetary health context.