VII. Medical effects of aircraft noise: Drug survey

Summary

In two villages in the vicinity of Schiphol airport the consumption of certain drugs was studied over the years 1967–1974 by means of purchase data of the pharmacies. The drugs studied were hypnotics, sedatives, antacids (on prescription) and cardiovascular drugs. One of the villages had no serious problem with aircraft noise; the other village initially had no aircraft noise, from 1969 much aircraft noise (NNI > 35) and in 1973–1974 aircraft noise only during daytime and practically none in the night.

It appeared that in the control village the purchase of the drugs mentioned, had hardly increased or had not increased at all. In the noisy village the purchase of hypnotics and sedatives had increased in the period after the beginning of aircraft noise, and decreased again, when the number of night flights was diminished. As to antacids on prescription, in a period of six years the purchase had gradually increased to twice the initial amount; the increase continued during the years, when there was almost no aircraft noise during the night. For cardiovascular drugs a similar trend was found; this appeared to be particularly due to the increased purchase of antihypertensive agents: also an increase to twice the initial amount.