Effects of Noise Pollution on Humans Health and Animals

Noise pollution is a major problem of new civilized world. Noise pollution refers to a sound that is annoying, a nuisance or undesired for the ears and can impact the activity or behaviour of the animal and human life. Noise is the second largest environmental cause of health problems, just after the impact of air pollution. Environmental noise pollution, a form of air pollution, is a threat to health and well - being. It is more severe and widespread than ever before, and it will continue to increase in magnitude and severity because of population growth, urbanization, and the associated growth in the use of increasingly powerful, varied, and highly mobile sources of noise. It will also continue to grow because of sustained growth in highway, rail, and air traffic, which remain major sources of environmental noise. In factory workplace, workers are exposed to high noise due to machinery in routine. It is also known as sound pollution or environmental noise, mainly caused by transportation and transport systems like vehicles, trains, or planes, and machines, music systems, megaphones, and industries, to mention a few. Noise is regarded as a pollutant majorly because it disrupts the natural flow of hearing or the normal hearing sense. Noise produces direct and cumulative adverse effects that impair health and that degrade residential, social and working environment with corresponding real (economic) and intangible (well - being) losses. Noise represents an important public health problem that can lead to hearing loss, sleep disruption, cardiovascular disease, social handicaps, reduced productivity, negative social behaviour, annoyance reactions, absenteeism and accidents. Given that noise is sound that is undesired, it can have adverse effects on both humans and animals, as discussed in this Paper.