Our daily soundscape is a cacophony of earsplitting jets, motorcycles, and construction sites. Engineers know how to eliminate and control noise, but other countries are ahead of the U.S. when it comes to keeping the quiet - with related health benefits.
Erica Walker had a studio in her Brookline, Mass. apartment where she worked as a bookbinder and furniture maker. That was until a family with two rowdy children moved in above her.
The kids ran amuck, disrupting her sleep and work. Ear plugs weren’t enough to blot out the commotion. Aside from anger and a sense of lost control, the noise increased her heart rate and made her stomach feel like it was dropping, she says.
That’s when Walker realized that noise is a public health problem, not merely an annoyance. She set up her own “mini study” on how the clamor was affecting her. She monitored sound levels in her apartment and sent saliva samples to a lab to measure her stress levels.
Walker ultimately sold her craft equipment and returned to school to study public health. Today she is assistant professor of epidemiology and director of the Community Noise Lab at the Brown University School of Public Health. “We treat noise like a first world problem—like a sacrifice we should have to make for modern conveniences. But it’s a serious environmental stressor,” she asserts.
Our daily soundscape is a cacophony of earsplitting jets, motorcycles, crying babies, construction sites or gunshots if you’re in the military. Noise exposure is the primary cause of preventable hearing loss. Researchers have identified links between excessive noise and a heightened risk of heart disease, metabolic disorders, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and impaired cognition. Even wildlife suffers. Blasting oil drills and loud shipping vessels impede the breeding, feeding and migration of whales and dolphins.
At one time, the federal government had our back… and our ears. Congress passed the Noise Control Act in 1972. The Environmental Protection Agency set up the Office of Noise Abatement and Control (ONAC) to launch research, explore solutions and establish noise emission standards. But ONAC was defunded in 1981 amidst a swirl of antiregulatory sentiment.
Impossibly Loud and Unhealthy
Daniel Fink. a physician, WHO consultant, and board chair of The Quiet Coalition, a program of the nonprofit Quiet Communities, likens the effect of noise to the invisible but cumulative harm of second-hand smoke. About 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. who report excellent to good hearing already have some hearing loss. The injury can happen after one loud concert or from years with a blaring TV. Some people are more genetically susceptible to noise-related hearing loss than others.
“People say noise isn’t a big deal but it bothers your body whether you realize it or not,” says Ted Rueter, director of Noise Free America: A Coalition to Promote Quiet. Noise can chip away at your ears or cardiovascular system even while you’re sleeping. Rueter became a “quiet advocate” while a professor at UCLA two decades ago. He was plagued by headaches, fatigue and sleep deprivation caused by the hubbub of Los Angeles, he says.
The louder a sound is, and the longer you are exposed to it, the more likely it will cause nerve damage and harmful fluid buildup in your inner ear. Normal speech is 50-60 decibels (dBs). The EPA recommends that 24-hour exposure to noise should be no higher than 70 weighted decibels over 24 hours (weighted to approximate how the human ear perceives the sound) to prevent hearing loss but a 55 dB limit is recommended to protect against other harms from noise, too.
The decibel scale is logarithmic. That means 80 dB is 10 times louder than 70 dB. Trucks and motorcycles run 90 dBs. A gas-powered leaf blower, jackhammer or snow blower will cost you 100 dBs. A rock concert is in the 110 dB range. Aircraft takeoffs or sirens? 120 dBs.
Walker, the Brown professor, says that sound measurements often use misleading metrics, though, because they don’t include low frequency sound that disturb the body. The high frequency of a screeching bus will register in decibels but the sound that makes your chest reverberate is not accounted for, she explains. ‘How loud?’ is a superficial take when it comes to noise, Walker says.
After realizing the impact of noise on her own health, Erica Walker was inspired to change careers and become director of the Community Noise Lab at the Brown University School of Public Health.
Erica Walker
Fink adds that the extent to which noise impairs hearing is underestimated. People assume hearing loss is due to age but it’s not inevitable, he says. He cites studies of older people living in quiet, isolated areas who maintain excellent hearing. Just like you can prevent wrinkles by using sunscreen, you can preserve hearing by using ear plugs when attending fireworks or hockey games.
You can enable push notifications on a Smart Watch to alert you at a bar exceeding healthy sound levels. Free apps like SoundPrint, iHEARu, or NoiseTube can do decibel checks, too, but you don’t need one, says Fink. “If you can’t carry a conversation at normal volume, it’s too loud and your auditory health is at risk,” he says.
About 40 million U.S. adults, ages 20-69, have noise-induced hearing loss. Fink is among them after experiencing tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ears) on leaving a raucous New Year’s Eve party in 2007. The condition is permanent and he wears earplugs now for protection.
Fewer are aware of the link between noise pollution and heart disease. Piercing noise is stressful, raising blood pressure and heart rate. If you live near a freeway or constantly barking dog, the chronic sound stress can trigger systemic inflammation and the vascular changes associated with heart attacks and stroke.
Researchers at Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, working with data from the state’s Bureau of Transportation, determined that 1 in 20 heart attacks in New Jersey during 2018 were due to noise from highways, trains and air traffic. That’s 800 heart attack hospitalizations in the state that year.
Another study showed that incidence of hypertension and hardening arteries decreased during the Covid-19 air lockdown among Poles in Krakow routinely exposed to aircraft noise. The authors, comparing their pre-pandemic 2015 results to 2020 data, concluded it was no coincidence.
Mental health takes a hit, too. Chronic noise can provoke anxiety, depression and violence. Cognitively, there is ample evidence that noise disturbance lowers student achievement and worker productivity, and hearing loss among older people can speed up cognitive decline.
Noise also contributes to health disparities. People in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status and a higher percentage of minority residents bear the brunt of noise. Affluent people have the means to live far from airports, factories, and honking traffic.
Out, Out, Damn Noise
Europe is ahead of the U.S. in tackling noise pollution. The World Health Organization developed policy guidelines used by the European Environment Agency to establish noise regulations and standards, and progress reports are issued.
Americans are relying too much on personal protective equipment (PPE) instead of eliminating or controlling noise. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention rank PPE as the least useful response. Earplugs and muffs are effective, says Walker, but these devices are “a band-aid on a waterfall.”
Editing out noise during product design is the goal. Engineers have an arsenal of techniques and know-how for that. The problem is that these solutions aren’t being applied.
A better way to lower the volume is by maintaining or substituting equipment intended for common use. Piercing building alarms can be replaced with visual signals that flash alerts. Clanking chain and gear drives can be swapped out with belt drives. Acoustical barriers can wall off highway noise. Hospitals can soften beeping monitors and limit loudspeaker blasts. Double paned windows preserve quiet.
Editing out noise during product design is the goal. Engineers have an arsenal of techniques and know-how for that. The problem is that these solutions aren’t being applied, says Jim Thompson, an engineer and editor of the Noise Control Engineering Journal, published by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the USA
Engineers have materials to insulate, absorb, reflect, block, seal or diffuse noise. Building walls can be padded. Metal gears and parts can be replaced with plastic. Clattering equipment wheels can be rubberized. In recent years, building certifications such as LEED have put more emphasis on designs that minimize harmful noise.
Walker faults urban planners, too. A city’s narrow streets and taller buildings create a canyon effect which intensifies noise. City planners could use bypasses, rerouting, and other infrastructure strategies to pump down traffic volume. Sound-absorbing asphalt pavement exists, too.
Some municipalities are taking innovative measures on their own. Noise cameras have been installed in Knoxville, Miami and New York City this year and six California cities will join suit next year. If your muffler or audio system registers 86 dB or higher, you may receive a warning, fine or citation, similar to how a red-light camera works. Rueter predicts these cameras will become commonplace.
Based on understanding how metabolic processes affect noise-induced hearing loss in animal models, scientists are exploring whether pharmacological interventions might work to inhibit cellular damage or improve cellular defenses against noise.
Washington, DC, and the University of Southern California have banned gas-powered leaf blowers in lieu of quieter battery-powered models to reduce both noise and air pollution. California will be the first state to ban the sale of gas-powered lawn equipment starting 2024.
New York state legislators enacted the SLEEP (Stop Loud and Excessive Exhaust Pollution) Act in 2021. This measure increases enforcement and fines against motorists and repair shops that illegally modify mufflers and exhaust systems for effect.
“A lot more basic science and application research is needed [to control noise],” says Thompson, noting that funding for this largely dried up after the 1970s. Based on understanding how metabolic processes affect noise-induced hearing loss in animal models, scientists are exploring whether pharmacological interventions might work to inhibit cellular damage or improve cellular defenses against noise.
Studying biochemical or known genetic markers for noise risk could lead to other methods for preventing hearing loss. This would offer an opportunity to identify people with significant risk so those more susceptible to hearing loss could start taking precautions to avoid noise or protect their ears in childhood.
These efforts could become more pressing in the near future, with the anticipated onslaught of drones, rising needs for air conditioners, and urban sprawl boding poorly for the soundscape. This, as deforestation destroys natural carbon absorption reservoirs and removes sound-buffering trees.
“Local and state governments don’t have a plan to deal with [noise] now or in the future,” says Walker. “We need to think about this with intentionality.”
The rise of remote work is a win-win for people with disabilities and employers
Disability advocates see remote work as a silver lining of the pandemic, a win-win for adults with disabilities and the business world alike.
Any corporate leader would jump at the opportunity to increase their talent pool of potential employees by 15 percent, with all these new hires belonging to an underrepresented minority. That’s especially true given tight labor markets and CEO desires to increase headcount. Yet, too few leaders realize that people with disabilities are the largest minority group in this country, numbering 50 million.
Some executives may dread the extra investments in accommodating people’s disabilities. Yet, providing full-time remote work could suffice, according to a new study by the Economic Innovation Group think tank. The authors found that the employment rate for people with disabilities did not simply reach the pre-pandemic level by mid-2022, but far surpassed it, to the highest rate in over a decade. “Remote work and a strong labor market are helping [individuals with disabilities] find work,” said Adam Ozimek, who led the research and is chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group.
Disability advocates see this development as a silver lining of the pandemic, a win-win for adults with disabilities and the business world alike. For decades before the pandemic, employers had refused requests from workers with disabilities to work remotely, according to Thomas Foley, executive director of the National Disability Institute. During the pandemic, "we all realized that...many of us could work remotely,” Foley says. “[T]hat was disproportionately positive for people with disabilities."
Charles-Edouard Catherine, director of corporate and government relations for the National Organization on Disability, said that remote-work options had been advocated for many years to accommodate disabilities. “It’s a little frustrating that for decades corporate America was saying it’s too complicated, we’ll lose productivity, and now suddenly it’s like, sure, let’s do it.”
The pandemic opened doors for people with disabilities
Early in the pandemic, employment rates dropped for everyone, including people with disabilities, according to Ozimek’s research. However, these rates recovered quickly. In the second quarter of 2022, people with disabilities aged 25 to 54, the prime working age, are 3.5 percent more likely to be employed, compared to before the pandemic.
What about people without disabilites? They are still 1.1 percent less likely to be employed.
These numbers suggest that remote work has enabled a substantial number of people with disabilities to find and retain employment.
“We have a last-in, first-out labor market, and [people with disabilities] are often among the last in and the first out,” Ozimek says. However, this dynamic has changed, with adults with disabilities seeing employment rates recover much faster. Now, the question is whether the new trend will endure, Ozimek adds. “And my conclusion is that not only is it a permanent thing, but it’s going to improve.”
Gene Boes, president and chief executive of the Northwest Center, a Seattle organization that helps people with disabilities become more independent, confirms this finding. “The new world we live in has opened the door a little bit more…because there’s just more demand for labor.”
Long COVID disabilities put a premium on remote work
Remote work can help mitigate the impact of long COVID. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 19 percent of those who had COVID developed long COVID. Recent Census Bureau data indicates that 16 million working age Americans suffer from it, with economic costs estimated at $3.7 trillion.
Certainly, many of these so-called long-haulers experience relatively mild symptoms - such as loss of smell - which, while troublesome, are not disabling. But other symptoms are serious enough to be disabilities.
According to a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, about a quarter of those with long COVID changed their employment status or working hours. That means long COVID was serious enough to interfere with work for 4 million people. For many, the issue was serious enough to qualify them as disabled.
Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found in a just-released study that the number of individuals with disabilities in the U.S. grew by 1.7 million. That growth stemmed mainly from long COVID conditions such as fatigue and brain fog, meaning difficulties with concentration or memory, with 1.3 million people reporting an increase in brain fog since mid-2020.
Many had to drop out of the labor force due to long COVID. Yet, about 900,000 people who are newly disabled have managed to continue working. Without remote work, they might have lost these jobs.
For example, a software engineer at one of my client companies has struggled with brain fog related to long COVID. With remote work, this employee can work during the hours when she feels most mentally alert and focused, even if that means short bursts of productivity throughout the day. With flexible scheduling, she can take rests, meditate, or engage in activities that help her regain focus and energy. Without the need to commute to the office, she can save energy and time and reduce stress, which is crucial when dealing with brain fog.
In fact, the author of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York study notes that long COVID can be considered a disability under the Americans with Disability Act, depending on the specifics of the condition. That means the law can require private employers with fifteen or more staff, as well as government agencies, to make reasonable accommodations for those with long COVID. Richard Deitz, the author of this study, writes in the paper that “telework and flexible scheduling are two accommodations that can be particularly beneficial for workers dealing with fatigue and brain fog.”
The current drive to return to the office, led by many C-suite executives, may need to be reconsidered in light of legal and HR considerations. Arlene S. Kanter, director of the disability law and policy program at the Syracuse University College of Law, said that the question should depend on whether people with disabilities can perform their work well at home, as they did during Covid outbreaks. “[T]hen people with disabilities, as a matter of accommodation, shouldn’t be denied that right,” Kanter said.
Diversity benefits
But companies shouldn’t need to worry about legal regulations. It simply makes dollars and sense to expand their talent pool by 15% of an underrepresented minority. After all, extensive research shows that improving diversity boosts both decision-making and financial performance.
Companies that are offering more flexible work options have already gained significant benefits in terms of diverse hires. In its efforts to adapt to the post-pandemic environment, Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, decided to offer permanent fully remote work options to its entire workforce. And according to Meta chief diversity officer Maxine Williams, the candidates who accepted job offers for remote positions were “substantially more likely” to come from diverse communities: people with disabilities, Black, Hispanic, Alaskan Native, Native American, veterans, and women. The numbers bear out these claims: people with disabilities increased from 4.7 to 6.2 percent of Meta’s employees.
Having consulted for 21 companies to help them transition to hybrid work arrangements, I can confirm that Meta’s numbers aren’t a fluke. The more my clients proved willing to offer remote work, the more staff with disabilities they recruited - and retained. That includes employees with mobility challenges. But it also includes employees with less visible disabilities, such as people with long COVID and immunocompromised people who feel reluctant to put themselves at risk of getting COVID by coming into the office.
Unfortunately, many leaders fail to see the benefits of remote work for underrepresented groups, such as those with disabilities. Some even say the opposite is true, with JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon claiming that returning to the office will aid diversity.
What explains this poor executive decision making? Part of the answer comes from a mental blindspot called the in-group bias. Our minds tend to favor and pay attention to the concerns of those in the group of people who seem to look and think like us. Dimon and other executives without disabilities don’t perceive people with disabilities to be part of their in-group. They thus are blind to the concerns of those with disabilities, which leads to misperceptions such as Dimon’s that returning to the office will aid diversity.
In-group bias is one of many dangerous judgment errors known as cognitive biases. They impact decision making in all life areas, ranging from the future of work to relationships.
Another relevant cognitive bias is the empathy gap. This term refers to our difficulty empathizing with those outside of our in-group. The lack of empathy combines with the blindness from the in-group bias, causing executives to ignore the feelings of employees with disabilities and prospective hires.
Omission bias also plays a role. This dangerous judgment error causes us to perceive failure to act as less problematic than acting. Consequently, executives perceive a failure to support the needs of those with disabilities as a minor matter.
Conclusion
The failure to empower people with disabilities through remote work options will prove costly to the bottom lines of companies. Not only are limiting their talent pool by 15 percent, they’re harming their ability to recruit and retain diverse candidates. And as their lawyers and HR departments will tell them, by violating the ADA, they are putting themselves in legal jeopardy.
By contrast, companies like Meta - and my clients - that offer remote work opportunities are seizing a competitive advantage by recruiting these underrepresented candidates. They’re lowering costs of labor while increasing diversity. The future belongs to the savvy companies that offer the flexibility that people with disabilities need.