New research suggests that living near major roads is attributed to a higher risk of sudden cardiac death in women.

Sudden cardiac arrest can be defined as the sudden, unexpected loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness, and usually results from an electrical disturbance in the heart that disrupts the pumping action, and therefore stops blood flow to the rest of the body.

Lead study author Jaime E. Hart, Sc.D., instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues studied data from 107,130 women as part of the Nurses’ Health Study from 1986 to 2012. Factors such as age, race, cigarette smoking, physical activity, diet, and calendar time, were accounted for, and residential distance to roadways were calculated.

The researchers discovered that living within 50 meters of a major road increased the risk of sudden cardiac death by 38 percent in women, in comparison to living at least 500 meters away. Every 100 meters closer to a roadway was linked to a 6 percent increased risk for sudden cardiac death.

The researchers concluded that people’s exposure to major roadways is comparable to major sudden cardiac death risk factors.

“It’s important for healthcare providers to recognize that environmental exposures may be under-appreciated risk factors for diseases such as sudden cardiac death and fatal coronary heart disease. On a population level, living near a major roadway was as important a risk factor as smoking, diet or obesity,” said Hart in a statement.

The findings of the study are published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.