Living Close To A Highway Can Kill You

A host of health problems have been connected to living near busy roads. It increases your risk of asthma, stunts children’s lung development and threatens your heart.

If you’ve survived a heart attack, being close to a highway increases your chances of dying. A study at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston shows that heart attack survivors who live within about 100 yards of a busy road suffer a 27 percent higher risk of death within 10 years than survivors living at least 1,000 yards away.

“Living close to a highway is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes in those with underlying cardiac disease,” warns Murray Mittleman, M.D., director of the center’s cardiovascular epidemiological research program. “Besides air pollution, exposure to noise could be a possible mechanism underlying this association.”

“This study adds to the growing knowledge linking roadways and traffic to health problems…” says Dan Costa, Sc.D., DABT, National Program Director for Air Climate & Energy Research in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development Research.