Conclusions
Hypertension affects approximately 78 million adults in the US and 1 billion adults worldwide (Go et al., 2013), and has been consistently associated with increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events independent of other risk factors. Our results suggest that among post-menopausal women in the US, living near major roadways may be an important novel risk factor for incident hypertension. If causal, these results suggest that regulatory efforts to reduce traffic emissions (noise and/or air pollution) may reduce the public health burden of hypertension. Given the increasing proportion of the world’s population living in urban environments and chronically exposed to potentially high levels of traffic-related air and noise pollution, as well as the high global rates of hypertension, additional studies are needed to confirm or refute these results.