High Annoyance Research Articles

The association between traffic noise and self-rated health within the German National Cohort (NAKO)

Abstract Objectives Traffic noise can cause stress and disturb sleep, impacting health in many ways. However, few large studies on this topic exist. We investigated the association between traffic noise and self-rated health (SRH) within the German National Cohort (NAKO). Methods NAKO enrolled >200,000 adults ages 20-74 at 18 sites in Germany. We used logistic regression to test whether 1) annual mean 24-hour ambient traffic noise levels at or above 55 dB(A) within a 10-meter residential buffer and 2) subjectively reported nighttime traffic noise annoyance were associated with higher odds of reporting fair/poor SRH. We calculated these associations within the full sample, stratified by sex, and stratified by age group (≤39 years, 40-59 years, ≥60 years). We adjusted for study site, age, sex, marital status, education level, and migration background. Results Among participants without missing data (n = 121,232), moderate annoyance was associated with 1.27 higher odds (95% CI 1.21-1.32) and strong annoyance with 1.75 higher odds (95% CI 1.65-1.84) of fair/poor SRH, while annual mean noise ≥55 dB(A) was associated with 1.07 higher odds (95% CI 1.03-1.12). Females who reported strong annoyance had especially high odds of fair/poor SRH (OR 1.81, 95% CI 1.69-1.95), as did those aged 40-59 years who reported high annoyance (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.66-1.92). Those 39 and under had no significant increase in odds of fair/poor SRH if they reported moderate annoyance or if they were exposed to ≥ 55 dB(A) annual mean noise. In single exposure models, noise annoyance and objectively measured noise were both significantly associated with higher odds of reporting fair/poor SRH, but in combined models, the effect of objectively measured noise became insignificant while the effect of annoyance remained strongly significant. Conclusions These findings confirm that traffic noise is an important public health issue. Further analyses on most affected populations should inform noise protection policies. Key messages • Higher levels of traffic noise are associated with worse self-rated health. • Ambient noise is an important public health issue for which more research is needed.

The effect of aircraft noise on noise annoyance in DEBATS and NORAH pooled analysis: Role of non-acoustic factors

We investigated the dose-response relationship between aircraft noise levels and noise annoyance in the French DEBATS study including 1244 participants in 2013 and a sub-study of the German NORAH study including 1039 participants in 2014. In both studies, annoyance due to aircraft noise was assessed using the ICBEN 5-points question. High annoyance was defined according to ISO/TS-15666 (HAV). Outdoor aircraft noise levels were modelled for the participants' home addresses. The moderation roles of noise sensitivity, gender and age were investigated. About 18% of the participants in the DEBATS study reported to be highly annoyed vs 54% in the NORAH study. The mean noise levels (Lden) were similar (54 dBA in DEBATS and 52 dBA in NORAH). In the pooled analysis, high noise annoyance was associated not only with aircraft noise levels, but also with non-acoustical factors such as noise sensitivity, age and trust in authorities. Noise sensitivity moderates the effect of aircraft noise levels on aircraft noise annoyance (p-value of interaction = 0.02), while age and gender do not.

Assessment of industrial noise nuisance - guidelines for calculating the HA index - results of surveys on the population covered by strategic noise maps in Poland

The work contains the results of research conducted in the field based on the ISO 15666 standard. The aim was to assess the annoyance of industrial noise around sources mapped as part of strategic noise maps made in Poland. The research area included five selected industrial areas, among all those mapped in Poland. 431 people were surveyed. The analysis included residents of five noise ranges: 50 - 55, 55 - 60, 60 - 65, 65 - 70 dB, described by the LDWN index. The result of the research was the determination of the dose-effect relationship for the HA (High Annoyance) index and the method of its calculation for the sample analysis area.

What pandemic era travel restrictions revealed about aircraft noise, complaints and annoyance—SONICC 2020

At the start of COVID-19 travel restrictions, Toronto Pearson International Airport experienced an approximate 80% reduction in traffic. This gave an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the impacts that a drastic reduction in aircraft noise would have on the communities surrounding the airport. Using the results of the Survey of Noise Impacts on Canadian Communities (SONICC) distributed in the summer of 2020, this research evaluated pre-pandemic and amidst pandemic aircraft noise annoyance in neighbourhoods surrounding Pearson Airport. The research investigated the effects of air traffic reduction on noise levels, complaint behaviour and annoyance. Complaint volumes correlated closely to the number of operations, experiencing a significant reduction. Despite the notable reduction in complaints, many complainants continued to vigorously complain, and some locations even experienced an increase in complaints. Pre-pandemic compared to amidst pandemic annoyance experienced reductions proportional to the average reduction in noise exposure. Despite significant reductions in noise, 33% of pre-pandemic highly annoyed (HA) respondents, remained highly annoyed, suggesting that anything short of a complete halt of operations would result in severe annoyance amongst a portion of the population.

Factors influencing the results of a social survey

Social surveys are conducted to determine how annoyed people are in a certain noise situation. The results are typically presented as exposure-response curves showing the percentage highly annoyed as a function of the noise exposure level. A re-analysis of previously conducted surveys reveal that the result is highly dependent not only on the noise level itself but also on a number of other factors like how the survey was conducted, how the annoyance questions were phrased, what kind of response scales were used, how was high annoyance defined etc. The influence of different factors will be discussed and quantified.

Exposure response relationships of annoyance and vibration and noise from passenger and freight trains in Sweden - results from the EpiVib study

Rail traffic is increasing in Europe, still little is known about the health effects of rail traffic vibration and noise for people living close to the railways. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between vibration respective noise from rail traffic and persons highly annoyed by vibration. The study population (N=7280) was randomly selected from residents (18-80 years) living within 1km of a trafficked railway in Sweden. Vibration and noise levels were modelled for each participant's home address. Result show exposure-response relationships between levels of vibration and noise and annoyance for all types of trains, especially freight trains. The association between maximum vibration velocity at building foundation (Vmax) and high annoyance by vibration from freight trains, accounting for potential confounders was (OR=1.37 per 0.1mm/s Vmax; 95% CI 1.32-1.42). Similarly, for railway noise (LAFmax) (OR=1.19 per 1 dB LAFmax; 95% CI 1.17-1.21). Analysis suggests an interaction between noise and vibration, where the effect of noise level on the probability of vibration annoyance by vibration differs with vibration exposure and vice versa. These findings may have implications for environmental health and transportation planning. Keywords: rail traffic vibration, railway noise, annoyance by vibration, freight trains

Dose error impacts on a collection of realistic dose-response curves based on a NASA sonic boom community noise survey

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to conduct surveys of community response to quiet supersonic flight to collect dose-response data for international regulators. Previous models of noise dose versus annoyance response ignored uncertainty in the noise dose experienced by survey respondents. This dose error causes attenuation bias and results in inaccurate dose-response relationships. The impacts of dose errors can be explored by introducing error into the dose estimates of a simulated community noise survey. The simulated population annoyance response is determined by specific noise response characteristics, including the onset of annoyance intercept, rate of increasing annoyance, participant intercept variability, and response rates. This paper explores the effects of dose errors on notional populations created by perturbing the noise response characteristics observed in participants in a recent NASA flight test, Quiet Supersonic Flights 2018 (QSF18). The QSF18-based population parameters were shifted up to ±20% to create the study populations. For the anticipated dose range of the X-59, changes to the onset of annoyance intercept have the greatest impact on erroneous model results. Quantifying point estimate errors illustrates the impact of dose error, with errors up to 14 dB observed for a fixed high annoyance percentage.

Estimates of population highly annoyed from transportation noise in the United States: An unfair share of the burden by race and ethnicity

Transportation is one of the most pervasive sources of community noise. In this study, we used a spatially-resolved model of transportation-related noise with established transportation noise exposure-response functions to estimate the population highly annoyed (HA) due to aviation, road, and railway traffic sources in the United States. Additionally, we employed the use of the Fair Share Ratio to assess race/ethnicity disparities in traffic noise exposures. Our results estimate that in 2020, 7.8 million (2.4%) individuals were highly annoyed by aviation noise, while 5.2 million (1.6%) and 7.9 million (2.4%) people were highly annoyed by rail and roadway noise, respectively, across the US. The Fair Share Ratio revealed that Non-Hispanic Asian, Black, NHPI, and Other, and Hispanic populations were disproportionally highly annoyed by transportation noise nationwide. Notably, Hispanic populations experienced the greatest share of high annoyance from aviation noise (1.69 times their population share). Non-Hispanic Black populations experienced the greatest share of high annoyance from railway noise (1.48 times their population share). Non-Hispanic Asian populations experienced the greatest share of high annoyance from roadway noise (1.51 times their population share). Analyses at the state and Urban Area levels further highlighted varying disparities in transportation noise exposure and annoyance across different race ethnicity groups, but still suggested that Non-Hispanic White populations were less annoyed by all sources of transportation noise compared to non-White populations. Our findings indicate widespread presence of transportation noise annoyance across the US and emphasize the need for targeted source-specific noise mitigation strategies and policies to minimize the disproportionate impact of transportation noise in the US.

Impact of Indoor Environmental Quality on Students’ Comfort in High School Buildings during the Summer Season in an Extreme Climate

Maintaining a satisfactory indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is an integral element of improving occupant health and well-being. In particular, IEQ is an essential factor in some facilities, such as school buildings, to improve student academic performance. This study employed an objective and subjective measurement approach to assess IEQ in a government high school (GHS) and a private high school (PHS) located in Oman, which is characterized by its extreme hot climate. A total of 212 high school students were surveyed during the summer season across 10 different classrooms to ascertain their perception of IEQ situations. The results suggested that most of the observed IEQ factors, including air temperature, relative humidity, and lighting levels across the classrooms in GHS and PHS, satisfied the ASHRAE standard, except the indoor air temperature, which was slightly above the maximum threshold of the European Standard (EN). The average indoor sound levels (>60 dB) exceeded critical limits of 35 dB for school buildings, which may pose the risk of high annoyance (HA) to 30% of students. Satisfactory predicted mean vote (PMV) and predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PPD) scores were obtained from both schools when they were evaluated against the ASHRAE standard compared with the EN standard. The maximum proportion of the students reported their classroom’s air temperature (33%), relative humidity (25%), and air movement (47%) levels as not acceptable, and thermal comfort (33%), visual comfort (22%), and air quality (41%) as bad (P < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis revealed a strong linear relationship between indoor air temperature (R2 = 0.89) and other IEQ parameters, while PPD (R2 = 0.45) and PMV (R2 = 0.17) showed a weak relationship with outdoor environmental factors. Outdoor air temperature and humidity levels accounted for greater changes in indoor air temperature levels in the PHS than in the GHS. Providing increased urban vegetation, green façade, and retrofitting and the utilization of passive cooling could help improve IEQ in Oman schools.

Statistical and spatio-temporal analyses of noise pollution level and its health impact.

Due to rapid urbanization and exponential growth in transportation; traffic noise has become a major area of concern. Noise not only disturbs our day-to-day life but also have severe adverse health effects over humans which further may lead to mortality. This paper focuses on the behavior of noise levels of Lucknow city over a decade and establishes its correlation with impact on human health in terms of annoyance and sleep disturbance. Apart from Leq, different noise parameters like L10, L50, L90, Traffic Noise Index (TNI), Noise Pollution Index (NPI), and Noise Climate (NC) have also been analyzed to understand the variation of noise. At all the locations, the noise level has been found exceeding their prescribed standards during day time and night time except at Amausi. Out of nine locations, TNI was found to be exceeding at three locations during day time and NPI exceeding at one location. However, during night time both values of TNI and NPL were observed within the limit at all the locations. From the noise map of the city during day time and night time, among all sampling locations, Charbagh has been found to be worst affected by noise pollution. A strong positive correlation has been observed among the total population, vehicular count, and day and night time noise data, which directly contribute to a higher percentage of sleep disturbance and annoyance among residents. Due to the increase in noise levels over a period of time, almost four times the population get affected by high annoyance and almost double the population get affected by sleep disturbance.

Automated simulation for household road traffic noise exposure: Application and field evaluation in a high-density city

Road traffic noise is a major nuisance and a risk factor of poor health for urban dwellers. A household's exposure to road traffic noise, especially in a high-density city, can be easily modified by the surrounding built environment, i.e., roads, traffic, buildings, and the topography. This leads to high variation in noise exposure between neighboring households. Existing simulation-based studies were limited in accounting for the variation of noise exposure at the household level, which restricted their applications in public health research involving large numbers of participants. This paper describes a novel simulation-based workflow to assess household traffic noise exposure, which consists of 1) a source model to assess road traffic noise levels, 2) a propagation model to simulate noise propagation in complex three-dimensional urban areas, 3) an automation algorithm to process large quantity of simulation runs and data. The workflow has been evaluated using field studies conducted in Sham Shui Po District, Hong Kong, with reasonably good agreements between simulated and measured data. It was then used to assess road traffic noise exposure for a sample of 6158 households enrolled in the FAMILY Cohort, representing Hong Kong's population dwelling in the dense urban areas. Results showed that 83% of sampled households have been exposed to excessive road traffic noise above the World Health Organization (WHO) standard, or 30% above the local standard. The estimated burden of disease is over 45,000 disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) from both high annoyance and sleep disturbance for households in Hong Kong. The study has contributed to the methodologies and datasets in evaluating noise exposure in high-density cities, which can further support urban noise mitigation policies and planning and population-based health studies in the next steps.

Traffic noise annoyance in the LIFE-adult study in Germany: Exposure-response relationships and a comparison to the WHO curves

BackgroundNoise annoyance is the second-highest cause of lost disability-adjusted life-years due to environmental noise in Europe. Evidence on exposure-response relationships (ERRs) for traffic noise annoyance with more accurate exposure values is still needed. ObjectivesIn an analysis of the population-based LIFE-Adult study in Leipzig, Germany, we aimed to investigate the effect of road, railway (train and tram), and aircraft noise on high annoyance (HA). MethodsTraffic exposure data was taken for 2012 and data on noise annoyance was evaluated between 2018 and 2021. HA was defined according to international standardized norms. We calculated risk estimates using logistic regression, controlling for age, sex, and socioeconomic status, and compared our ERRs with those from the last WHO review on this topic. ResultsAircraft noise had the highest relative risk for noise-related HA (OR = 12.7, 95% CI: 9.37–17.10 per 10 dB Lden increase). The road and railway traffic risk estimates were similar to each other (road: OR = 3.55, 95% CI: 2.78–4.54; railway: OR = 3.31, 95% CI: 2.77–3.97 per 10 dB Lden increase). Compared to the WHO curves, the proportion of highly annoyed individuals was somewhat lower for road and rail traffic noise, but higher for aircraft noise. DiscussionAircraft noise is particularly annoying. There were differences between our study's ERRs and those in the WHO review, especially for aircraft noise. These differences may be partly explained by the improved accuracy of the exposure values, as we considered secondary road networks and tram noise, and by a lack of a nighttime flight ban at the Leipzig airport. Geographical, regional and climatic variations, inconsistency in HA cut-offs, as well as temporal developments in the annoyance experience may also explain the differences. Since ERRs serve as a basis for decision making in public policies, regular updates of the curves based on new evidence is recommended.

A study on the impact of road traffic noise exposure on work efficiency of housewives.

Housewives are individuals who take on the caregiving role in the family in virtually every society and while discharging their duties experience serious psychological difficulties due to external environmental pollutants like air, noise, etc., which influences their efficiency of performing household activities. This study hypothesizes a causal association between perception of traffic noise and the reduction in performance of housewives in their daily household activities. A simple mediation model was utilized for the study with traffic noise perception as the exposure variable. The sensitivity to traffic noise, annoyance caused due to traffic noise, and the effect of traffic noise on housewives were evaluated using questionnaire survey. Of the respondents, 57.33% reported high level of traffic noise perception, while 65.81% reported high annoyance due to traffic noise perception. Of the respondents, 88.69% reported higher levels of agreement with regard to negative effect of traffic noise on their household activities. The results supported the hypothesis with respondents belonging to high and moderate noise perception groups reporting a higher reduction in performance as compared to those belonging to the low noise perception group at higher values of sensitivity. There was no significant direct effect among those who perceived traffic noise as high and moderate. However, the indirect path revealed that there was a significantly higher reduction in performance among those belonging to the high and moderate noise perception group as compared to those belonging to the low noise perception group while those who perceived traffic noise as high and moderate did not differ significantly only at higher levels of sensitivity. Using OGRS computational tool, a sensitivity value of 5.586 was identified as the Johnson-Neyman boundary of significance for the direct effect. The results from the study highlight the need for including environmental noise related regulations with regard to residential structures by the concerned authorities and also the need for undertaking more rigorous studies by health authorities and organizations so that the effects are minimized if not eliminated completely.

A method to quantify the noise annoyance in an airport community

Exposure-response curves showing the prevalence of high annoyance as a function of the long-term noise exposure level DNL/DENL is the preferred way of presenting the results from surveys on noise annoyance. However, such curves give very little information about the actual extent of the negative impact in a specific noise situation. The number of impacted people is not known and people that are annoyed to a lesser degree than "highly annoyed" are not counted. A method to quantify the magnitude of noise annoyance in an airport community has been developed.

Using burden of disease or harmful effect assessments for quantifying health impacts from environmental noise?

Commission Directive (EU) 2020/367 describes how harmful effects may be calculated for ischemic heart disease (IHD), high annoyance (HA), and high sleep disturbance (HSD) for road, rail, and aircraft noise. However, traditionally the negative health impacts of environmental noise have been assessed using the WHO's Burden of Disease methodology. In terms of evaluating how harmful effects and burden of disease methodologies compare in terms of the requirements for calculation, interpretation of results, practical application, and suitability for measuring the negative health impacts of environmental noise, our analysis suggests that the EU's harmful effects assessment may be a superior methodology because: 1) the harmful effect methodology is more efficient, less health data is necessary, and it requires less calculation; 2) for assessment that requires the application of national incidence statistics, results can be obtained for spatially localised areas as opposed to overall national figures; and 3) results from harmful effect assessment may be easier to interpret. However, it must also be emphasised that the pervasive application of burden of disease assessment means that comparative analysis with non-noise-induced disease states is possible, whilst this is not possible with harmful effect assessment.

Burden of disease due to transportation noise in the Nordic countries

Environmental noise is of considerable public health concern, and quantification of the health impacts is important for preventive strategies. In this project we estimated the burden of disease due to road traffic and railway noise in four Nordic countries and their capital cities in terms of DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life Years). Available data on noise exposure were used, including data from strategic noise mapping according to the Environmental Noise Directive, END (Directive 2002/49/EC). High degree of noise annoyance (HA), high degree of sleep disturbance (HSD) and ischemic heart disease (IHD) were included in the analyses based on exposure-response associations recommended by WHO. Country-specific estimates of IHD from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study were used. Since several aspects of the noise exposure modelling vary considerably between the Nordic countries, no comparable estimates could be made for the entire countries. For the capital cities comparable estimates ranged from 330 to 485 DALYs/100,000 for road traffic noise, and from 40 to 140 DALYs/100 000 for railway noise. High annoyance and high degree of sleep disturbance accounted for the largest part of DALYs for road traffic and railway noise, respectively. Further harmonization of noise exposure modelling is important for comparative disease burden assessment.

Noise effects on health in studies in Low-Middle-income-countries (LMICs): a narrative review update of epidemiological evidence

Noise has been linked to adverse non-auditory health problems, including annoyance, sleep disturbance, cardiovascular disease, and impaired cognitive function. However, most studies on these topics have been conducted in developed countries. This review focussed on studies in Low-and Middle-income-countries (LMICs), which are generally considered to suffer from worse noise pollution. We conducted a literature search of Medline and Web of Science from 2009-2021, supplemented with specialist journal hand searches and identified relevant 56 studies in LMICs. Thirty-four (60.7%) of the 56 studies assessed exposure based on sound level meter monitoring, eleven with noise mapping, six with subjective ratings, three with portable sensor measurements, and two used meteorological data provided by atmospheric administration. Twenty-four (42.9%) of the 56 studies looked at noise annoyance and perception and found, as with non-LMIC studies, higher noise levels are associated with higher annoyance. Thirteen studies examined cardiovascular outcomes (mainly blood pressure or hypertension) of which 11 found adverse associations with noise exposure. Eleven studies considered mental health status, but the findings were inconclusive. A meta-analysis was not possible due to the variability of the study designs. This review will help inform further studies and health-based recommendations in LMICs.

Sound masking of residential noise by a birdsong depending on spectral and temporal characteristics

This study aimed to investigate the sound masking according to spectral and temporal characteristics of residential noise and natural sound through auditory experiment. Since there are various types of residential noise sources (maskee) and natural sounds (masker), stimuli to be used for experiment were selected by dividing the sound source groups through the k-means cluster method. The stimuli consisted of a total of 7 maskee including a brown noise, and 7 masker (birdsongs and water sounds). In the auditory experiment, the preference of masker and the annoyance and unpleasantness of single maskee and masker and mixed sources (maskee+masker) were investigated. Result showed that Phoenicurus auroreus and stream-Fast were the highest preference among masker, and masker preference were significantly correlated with masker annoyance. In addition, it was found that impact sound (children jumping and running and piledriver) show relatively higher annoyance than other sound sources. Relative annoyance of mixed sources (maskee+masker) to single maskee was analyzed and masking effect was discussed based on spectral and temporal and the Zwicker's parameters of each sound source.

A prediction method for indoor vibration over metro depot throat area based on coupled interactions of wheel-rail

Environmental vibration pollution is the primary environmental problem faced by the superstructure of metro depots. The throat area is especially prone to high wheel-rail impact vibration due to multiple joints and turnouts, which may cause high annoyance to the residents in the superstructures both on the upper cover and surrounding areas. In this paper, based on the coupled dynamic analysis of wheel-turnout, a prediction method to evaluate the indoor vibration of over-track building is established. Firstly, subway turnout with variable sections on switch, connection part and frog and vehicle models are established, and wheel-rail force is obtained through multibody dynamics calculation. Secondly, the track-foundation-structure finite element numerical model was built, loading the wheel-rail force excitation, then the indoor vibration could be obtained. The accuracy of this method is verified taking a 32 story residential superstructure in North China as an example. The vertical vibration accelerations were measured on every other floor when a A-type train travelled on a 7-turnout. The error between the measured data and the calculated results was within 5%, indicating that this prediction method has certain accuracy. The research results have certain guiding significance for the prediction and control of vibration in metro depot.

Long-term evolution of noise annoyance depends on the type of transportation noise - what are the main drivers for the observed trends and their differences?

Transportation noise annoyance has been investigated in a widely standardized way over the last decades, which allows studying the evolution of exposure-response relationships over time. A comparison reveals an increase of high annoyance in recent studies for railway and especially aircraft noise, compared to rather stable relationships for road traffic noise. Yet the reasons for these disparate developments remain only little explored, particularly for railway noise. In this contribution, potential explanations for the observed divergences are discussed, namely changing values and expectations in society, changing semantics of words used in survey instruments, changes in the attitude towards the different types of traffic, and changes in exposure strength and characteristics. On that basis, considerations are made about the suitability of noise annoyance as a noise effect informing noise limits.