Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7, 3457-3466; doi:10.3390/ijerph7093457 OPEN ACCESS International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ISSN 1660-4601 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph Article Associations between Chronic Community Noise Exposure and Blood Pressure at Rest and during Acute Noise and Non-Noise Stressors among Urban School Children in India Stephen J. Lepore 1,*, Bhaskar Shejwal 2, Bang Hyun Kim 1 and Gary W. Evans 3 1 Department of Public Health, Temple University, 957 Ritter Annex, 1301 Cecil B. Moore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA; E-Mail: bkim@temple.edu (B.H.K.) 2 Department of Psychology, Pune University, Arts Faculty Building, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411007, India; E-Mail: brs@unipune.ernet.in (B.S.) 3 Department of Design & Environmental Analysis, Cornell University, M Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA; E-Mail: gwe1@cornell.edu (G.W.E.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: slepore@temple.edu; Tel.: +1-215-204-0315; Fax: +1-215-204-1156. Received: 31 July 2010; in revised form: 2 September 2010 / Accepted: 14 September 2010 / Published: 15 September 2010 Abstract: The present study builds on prior research that has examined the association between children’s chronic exposure to community noise and resting blood pressure and blood pressure dysregulation during exposure to acute stressors. A novel contribution of the study is that it examines how chronic noise exposure relates to blood pressure responses during exposure to both noise and non-noise acute stressors. The acute noise stressor was recorded street noise and the non-noise stressor was mental arithmetic. The sample consisted of 189 3rd and 6th grade children (51.9% percent boys; 52.9% 3rd graders) from a noisy (n = 95) or relatively quiet (n = 94) public school in the city of Pune, India. There were no statistically significant differences between chronic noise levels and resting blood pressure levels. However, relative to quiet-school children, noisy-school children had significantly lower increases in blood pressure when exposed to either an acute noise or non-noise stressor. This finding suggests that chronic noise exposure may result in hypo-reactivity to a variety of stressors and not just habituation to noise stressors. Keywords: noise; blood pressure; stress; reactivity; habituation