• annoyance
• epidemiologia
• ipertensione
• rumore

Health effects due to environmental noise are now widely investigated in the actual epidemiology. Most studies focused on air or road traffic, while railway noise is quiet underestimated. The city of Pisa, participated in a national study on effects of airport noise (SERA) and the SERF study is its complement.
This study wants to evaluate the health effects connected to railway noise in an urban area (Pisa).
A sample of 102 people, living in Pisa near the railway for at least 5 years, and aged 35-70 has been selected to be interviewed in this survey. The questionnaire is composed by 12 different sections, including principally questions on annoyance, sleep disturbances and five different blood pressure measures. Analysis has been conducted as in the SERA project and results has been compared to those ones.
A positive correlation between sleep disturbance (especially for LDEN 55-60) has been found; the most annoying noises from railway seems to be squeals (both for brakes or curve traits) and whistles. Annoyance, in fact, results to be highly related to these noises. The SERA -SERF joined analysis showed that the first source of annoyance in Pisa is airplane, followed by railway noise and then by urban traffic. A linear correlation between the building floor and the vibrations derived from trains was found.