Air pollution harms male fertility while women face similar risk from noise, study finds
Air pollution is associated with a higher infertility risk in men, while noise pollution is associated with a higher risk of infertility in women, a study has found.
The study, which has been peer-reviewed and published in the BMJ, looked at whether long-term exposure to road traffic noise and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a particular form of air pollution, was associated with a higher risk of infertility in men and women.
It drew from a database of 526,056 men and 377,850 women aged 30 to 45 who had fewer than two children, were cohabiting or married, and who had lived in Denmark between 2000 and 2017. This subset of the database was selected to include a high proportion of people who were actively trying to become pregnant.
Between 1995 and 2017, the average amount of PM2.5 pollution was recorded at the addresses of each participant, and infertility diagnoses were recorded from the national patient register.
Across the 18-year period, infertility was diagnosed in 16,172 men and 22,672 women, and after adjusting for factors such as income, education level and occupation, it was found that exposure to levels of PM2.5 that were 2.9 micrograms per cubic metre higher than average over five years was associated with a 24% increased risk of infertility in men aged 30 to 45.
