Reviewing evidence on noise exposure and non-auditory health effects in the European Network for Noise and Health (ENNAH)

The European Union Framework 7 (EU FP7) funded European Network for Noise and Health (ENNAH) project brings together 33 European research centers with the aim of establishing a network of experts and informing future research directions and policy needs in Europe. Part of the work activity has been to review evidence on noise and health; specifically to (i) provide a state of art summary of knowledge on noise exposure and non-auditory health effects, (ii) to identify gaps in the evidence and (iii) to make recommendations for further research. Methods used to achieve this have been extensive database and on-line literature searches to identify published and grey literature studies, three ENNAH workshops (two specific to the literature review) and discussions with ENNAH partners. It was decided early on not to attempt a large-scale general review of evidence as several very high quality reviews were in use or in preparation, so literature review work has centred around a review of reviews including a ranking of these using quality criteria adapted for this purpose, identification of gaps in the literature and systematic reviews in specific areas where synthesis of evidence was considered to be lacking such as noise sensitivity and health. The dissemination plan for the literature review work has focused on making the key findings of the literature search easily accessible for the project partners. General information and the final report will be made accessible as a publicly available web document with 'click-through' facility on the ENNAH website.