Is living near an airport bad for your health? What the research says

Researchers have studied people who live near airports for decades, from surveys of a few thousand households to health records covering millions. They agree on the outline. Aircraft noise annoys people and disturbs their sleep at levels well below those most governments treat as significant. Links with high blood pressure, heart disease, children's reading and depression have been found too, but they are harder to pin down, and the World Health Organization rates most of that evidence as low or very low quality.

The short answer

For most people, the clearest effects of living near an airport are on daily life: annoyance, broken sleep and the tiredness that follows. The increases in risk that studies report for physical health are modest for any one person, mostly between 3% and 15% for each 10 dB more noise, and several of the clearest findings concern noise at night.

The WHO's 2018 guidelines for Europe are the most thorough review of the evidence so far, and they grade each finding by how far it can be trusted:

In the WHO's terms, "moderate" means further research may still change the estimate, and "very low" means any estimate is uncertain. A low rating does not show there is no effect, only that the studies so far cannot settle it.

Annoyance: the best-established effect

The WHO treats annoyance as a health effect, and it is the one it used to set its main limit for aircraft noise. Across 12 surveys near airports in Europe and Asia, about 1 person in 10 was highly annoyed at 45 dB Lden, the day-evening-night average, rising to 18% at 50 dB and 36% at 60 dB. At the same average level, aircraft noise annoys more people than road or rail traffic.

National surveys since then point the same way. The FAA's survey of more than 10,000 residents near 20 US airports, published in 2021, found 60-71% highly annoyed at 65 dB DNL, the level the US treats as significant. A survey for the UK's Civil Aviation Authority in 2023-24 found 1 person in 10 highly annoyed at about 43 dB LAeq,16h, well below the 51 dB at which UK policy says adverse effects begin. How the WHO turned these findings into its limits is explained in our guide to the WHO guidelines.

Sleep: the effect that matters most at night

Sleep is where the evidence is most direct, because it can be recorded. In a German field study, 64 people living near Cologne-Bonn airport slept with electrodes for nine nights while microphones in their bedrooms recorded every plane. The chance of waking rose with how loud each plane was inside the room, from a threshold of about 33 dB. In the same team's laboratory study, planes above 70 dB in the bedroom caused awakenings that lasted longer than the natural ones everyone has during the night.

Surveys show the same across whole populations. The WHO's review found 11% of people highly sleep-disturbed at 40 dB Lnight, the night-time average, and about 20% at 50 dB. The UK's Aviation Night Noise Effects (ANNE) study, a survey of 4,183 people near eight UK airports published in June 2026, found 1 in 10 highly sleep-disturbed at 44 dB LAeq,8h. People reported disturbed sleep at the lowest noise levels between 03:00 and 06:00.

The body reacts too. In the HYENA study, blood pressure measured every 15 minutes in 140 sleeping people near four European airports was on average 6 to 7 mmHg higher in the intervals when an aircraft was recorded, and other noises of the same loudness had a similar effect. How many night flights it takes to disturb sleep, and why early-morning arrivals matter so much, is covered in aircraft noise and sleep.

High blood pressure and heart disease

This is where the evidence is least certain. The main studies:

• HYENA measured the blood pressure of 4,861 people aged 45 to 70 who had lived for at least five years near one of six large European airports, including Heathrow. Each 10 dB more night-time aircraft noise went with 14% higher odds of high blood pressure.
• Heathrow, 2013. Among 3.6 million people in 12 London boroughs and nine districts west of London, hospital admissions for stroke were 24% higher, and for coronary heart disease 21% higher, in areas with the most daytime aircraft noise (above 63 dB) than in those with the least (51 dB or below). The authors noted that a study comparing areas cannot rule out other explanations.
• US airports, 2013. Among 6 million people over 65 living near 89 airports, each 10 dB more aircraft noise went with a 3.5% higher rate of hospital admission for cardiovascular disease.
• Switzerland. In a national cohort of 4.6 million adults, deaths from heart attack were about 30% more common at 60 dB or more than below 45 dB, a difference that could have been chance, and 50% more common among people who had lived in the same place for at least 15 years. A 15-year follow-up of 4.1 million adults linked aircraft noise with deaths from heart attack, 4% more for each 10 dB, but not with deaths from cardiovascular disease as a whole.
• Zurich, 2021. Looking at 24,886 cardiovascular deaths near Zurich airport, deaths at night were 44% more likely when aircraft noise in the two hours before had averaged above 50 dB than when it was below 20 dB. The authors concluded that night-time aircraft noise can trigger deaths from cardiovascular disease.
• US nurses. In two long-running studies of female nurses near 90 US airports, where most exposure was low, aircraft noise was not linked with heart disease or death. Night-time aircraft noise of 45 dB or more went with an 11% higher risk of developing high blood pressure, a link that weakened after allowing for body weight.

The WHO rated the evidence for heart disease very low and for high blood pressure low. Many of the largest studies compare areas rather than individuals, and results vary between airports. What counts in their favour is that risk tends to rise with the noise level, and the WHO upgraded the heart disease evidence for that reason.

Children's learning

Children at schools under flight paths tend to learn to read more slowly. RANCH tested 2,844 children aged 9 and 10 at 89 schools around three major airports in the UK, the Netherlands and Spain. Reading comprehension and recognition memory got worse as aircraft noise at school rose, after allowing for family background and classroom insulation. Attention did not. The WHO puts the effect at a delay of one to two months in reading for every 5 dB, and rates the evidence moderate. The NORAH study near Frankfurt found a one-month delay for every 10 dB.

Most of this research looked at noise at school rather than at home. More on both in aircraft noise and children.

Mental health

The evidence here is thin. The WHO rated the links between aircraft noise and depression or anxiety as very low quality, and found no clear effect on how people rate their own quality of life or health. Since then:

• A 2020 meta-analysis of five studies found the risk of depression 12% higher for each 10 dB of aircraft noise.
• Around Frankfurt, health insurance records for 77,295 people newly diagnosed with depression and 578,246 without showed the highest risk, about 23% above the lowest levels, at 50-55 dB of aircraft noise. It was lower at higher levels, which the authors suggest may be because the most sensitive people insulate their homes or move away.

Annoyance does not seem to fade with time either. In ANNE, how long people had lived in their home made little difference to how annoyed they were. That question is taken up in can you get used to aircraft noise?

Air quality near airports

Noise is not the only thing that comes off a runway. Jet engines also emit large numbers of ultrafine particles. Near Los Angeles International Airport, researchers measured particle numbers at least twice the normal background over about 60 km² downwind, reaching 16 km (10 miles) from the airport, and four to five times background at 8-10 km.

What that does to health is less clear. Near Schiphol, children aged 7 to 11 wheezed more and used their inhalers more on days after higher levels of aviation particles, though their lung function did not change consistently. A study of deaths around Schiphol from 2003 to 2019 found no link with daily levels, and a study of 286,000 births found suggestive but not conclusive links with premature birth and other pregnancy outcomes. The WHO's 2021 air quality guidelines set no limit for ultrafine particles, because the evidence was not yet enough to derive one.

What it means if you live near an airport

The effects that are best established, annoyance and poor sleep, are also the ones that depend most directly on what you hear at home: how many loud planes, how loud, and at what time. At night, the hours before 06:00 seem to matter most. Closed windows help: the WHO estimates the difference between outdoor and indoor levels at about 10 dB with a window open and about 25 dB with it closed. Practical ways to protect your sleep are in sleeping under a flight path.

If you are choosing a home, the questions that matter for health are the same ones that matter for comfort: how many loud planes pass over, how many of them at night, and when the first ones arrive.