Living next to road rage

Location, location, location. Always an important factor when buying a home, but it turns out it might be even more important than we think. A new study out of Lund University Hospital in Sweden finds that those living near a noisy road are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure.

The study sample was made up of 24,238 Swedish adults between the ages of 18 and 80. The research team used health survey questionnaires and then compared this information to where the respondent lived. A geographic information system was used to determine average road noise.

The researchers found that those who lived close to loud roads were more likely to report having high blood pressure than those living in quieter areas. According to BBC News, it was concluded that daily sound exposure at above 60 decibels increased the risk of high blood pressure by at least 25 percent.

Theo Bodin, head researcher, tells Science Daily:

“We found that exposure above 60 decibels was associated with high blood pressure among the relatively young and middle-aged, an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke.”

However, these effects were not seen in the elderly. Bodin explains:

“The effect of noise may become less important, or harder to detect, relative to other risk factors with increasing age. Alternatively, it could be that noise annoyance varies with age.”

The study is published online in the journal Environmental Health.

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The best and worst places to do business

“As a place to do business,” writes Vincent Boland in the Financial Times, Italy, according to the World Bank Doing Business Rankings, “comes 78th, between Panama and the Pacific Island of Kiribati.” Mediocrity may be embarrassing for the world’s seventh largest economy, but from the perspective of Kiribati, one of the world’s smallest economies, it’s a glass just waiting to be half-filled.

So how did the USA – the world’s largest economy – rank compared to the best and worst out of 183 countries studied?

Categories	USA	Best	Worst
Ease of Doing Business	4	Singapore	Central African Republic
Starting a Business	8	New Zealand	Guinea-Bissau
Dealing with Construction Permits	25	Hong Kong	Eritrea
Employing Workers	1		Bolivia
Registering Property	12	Saudi Arabia	Multiple*
Getting Credit	4	Malaysia	Palau
Protecting Investors	5	New Zealand	Afghanistan
Paying Taxes	61	Maldives	Belarus
Trading Across Borders	18	Singapore	Afghanistan
Enforcing Contracts	8	Luxembourg	Timor Leste
Closing a Business	15	Japan	Multiple**

*Brunai, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Timor-Leste

**Afghanistan, Albania, Bhutan, Borundi, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Kiribati, Lao PDR, Mozambique, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, West Bank and Gaza.