▪ Abstract Among several viable explanations for the ubiquitous SES-health gradient is differential exposure to environmental risk. We document evidence of inverse relations between income and other indices of SES with environmental risk factors including hazardous wastes and other toxins, ambient and indoor air pollutants, water quality, ambient noise, residential crowding, housing quality, educational facilities, work environments, and neighborhood conditions. We then briefly overview evidence that such exposures are inimical to health and well-being. We conclude with a discussion of the research and policy implications of environmental justice, arguing that a particularly salient feature of poverty for health consequences is exposure to multiple environmental risk factors.

Socioeconomic Status and Health: The Potential Role of Environmental Risk Exposure

The built environment has direct and indirect effects on mental health. High-rise housing is inimical to the psychological well-being of women with young children. Poor-quality housing appears to increase psychological distress, but methodological issues make it difficult to draw clear conclusions. Mental health of psychiatric patients has been linked to design elements that affect their ability to regulate social interaction (e.g., furniture configuration, privacy). Alzheimer's patients adjust better to small-scale, homier facilities that also have lower levels of stimulation. They are also better adjusted in buildings that accommodate physical wandering. Residential crowding (number of people per room) and loud exterior noise sources (e.g., airports) elevate psychological distress but do not produce serious mental illness. Malodorous air pollutants heighten negative affect, and some toxins (e.g., lead, solvents) cause behavioral disturbances (e.g., self-regulatory ability, aggression). Insufficient daylight is reliably associated with increased depressive symptoms. Indirectly, the physical environment may influence mental health by altering psychosocial processes with known mental health sequelae. Personal control, socially supportive relationships, and restoration from stress and fatigue are all affected by properties of the built environment. More prospective, longitudinal studies and, where feasible, randomized experiments are needed to examine the potential role of the physical environment in mental health. Even more challenging is the task of developing underlying models of how the built environment can affect mental health. It is also likely that some individuals may be more vulnerable to mental health impacts of the built environment. Because exposure to poor environmental conditions is not randomly distributed and tends to concentrate among the poor and ethnic minorities, we also need to focus more attention on the health implications of multiple environmental risk exposure.

/pdf/the-built-environment-and-mental-health-21axdseamt.pdf

The built environment and mental health.

(2008). MARINE MAMMAL NOISE-EXPOSURE CRITERIA: INITIAL SCIENTIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS. Bioacoustics: Vol. 17, No. 1-3, pp. 273-275.

Marine mammal noise-exposure criteria: initial scientific recommendations

Acoustic masking from anthropogenic noise is increasingly being considered as a threat to marine mammals, particularly low-frequency specialists such as baleen whales. Low-frequency ocean noise has increased in recent decades, often in habitats with seasonally resident populations of marine mammals, raising concerns that noise chronically influences life histories of individuals and populations. In contrast to physical harm from intense anthropogenic sources, which can have acute impacts on individuals, masking from chronic noise sources has been difficult to quantify at individ- ual or population levels, and resulting effects have been even more difficult to assess. This paper pre- sents an analytical paradigm to quantify changes in an animal's acoustic communication space as a result of spatial, spectral, and temporal changes in background noise, providing a functional defini- tion of communication masking for free-ranging animals and a metric to quantify the potential for communication masking. We use the sonar equation, a combination of modeling and analytical tech- niques, and measurements from empirical data to calculate time-varying spatial maps of potential communication space for singing fin (Balaenoptera physalus), singing humpback (Megoptera novaeangliae), and calling right (Eubalaena glacialis) whales. These illustrate how the measured loss of communication space as a result of differing levels of noise is converted into a time-varying mea- sure of communication masking. The proposed paradigm and mechanisms for measuring levels of communication masking can be applied to different species, contexts, acoustic habitats and ocean noise scenes to estimate the potential impacts of masking at the individual and population levels.

/pdf/acoustic-masking-in-marine-ecosystems-intuitions-analysis-1bf9537d04.pdf

Acoustic masking in marine ecosystems: intuitions, analysis, and implication

There is increasing concern about the effects of pile driving and other anthropogenic (human-generated) sound on fishes. Although there is a growing body of reports examining this issue, little of the work is found in the peer-reviewed literature. This review critically examines both the peer-reviewed and 'grey' literature, with the goal of determining what is known and not known about effects on fish. A companion piece provides an analysis of the available data and applies it to estimate noise exposure criteria for pile driving and other impulsive sounds. The critical literature review concludes that very little is known about effects of pile driving and other anthropogenic sounds on fishes, and that it is not yet possible to extrapolate from one experiment to other signal parameters of the same sound, to other types of sounds, to other effects, or to other species.

The effects of anthropogenic sources of sound on fishes.

Definitions and Measurement of Noise and Sound. Structures and Functions of the Ear. Auditory Sensations and Perceptions. Normal Hearing, Sociocusis, Nosocusis, and Hearing Loss from Industrial Noise. Derivation of a General Theory and Procedure for Predicting Hearing Loss from Exposure to Sound. Speech Intelligibility in Quiet and in Noise. The Assessment of Hearing Handicap and Damage Risk from Noise. Mental and Psychomotor Task Performance in Noise. Nonauditory System Responses to Sound and Noise and Relations to Health. Community Reactions to Environmental Noise. References. Index.

The Handbook of Hearing and the Effects of Noise: Physiology, Psychology, and Public Health

Pure-tone hearing thresholds and anamnestic data pertaining to nosocusis and exposure to gun noise were analyzed for 9778 male railroad train-crew workers. A major portion of losses in hearing sensitivity due to railroad noise are obscured in comparisons of hearing levels of trainmen with the hearing levels of the unscreened samples of United States males given in Annex B, ISO 1999 [ISO 1999 (1990), "Acoustics--Determination of occupational noise exposure and estimation of noise-induced hearing impairment" (International Organization for Standardization, Geneva)]. Comparisons of the hearing levels, adjusted for nosocusis, of trainmen who had used no guns, with the hearing levels of otologically and noise screened males (Annex A, ISO 1999) reveal significant losses due to railroad noise. Additional losses were found at high frequencies in trainmen who had used guns. It appears that the effective Leq8h exposure level of trainmen to railroad noise is about 92 dBA, and 87-89 dBA to gun noise. These results are in general agreement with those of study of railway workers by Prosser et al. [Br. J. Audiol. 22, 85-91 (1988)]. Asymmetries in losses between the two ears, effects of ear protection, losses from nosocusis, and losses from sport, as compared to military, gun noise exposures, are examined.

Hearing loss from gun and railroad noise—Relations with ISO Standard 1999

A demonstration field-research study reveals that aircraft noise measured at two one-story houses is ∼9dB less attenuated from measured outdoor levels than is street traffic noise, and, found in other studies, ∼14dB less than railway noise. Comparable differences are found between these noises from the application of basic acoustical formulas for quantifying attenuations that occur on site of one- and two-story houses. Reasonably consistent with those findings are results from attitude surveys showing that daily exposure levels of aircraft must be ∼8dB less than levels of street traffic noise, and ∼13dB less than levels of railway noise to be perceived as an equal cause of annoyance and related adverse effects. However, USA government guidelines recommend that equal exposure levels of noise measured outdoors from vehicles of transportation should be considered as being equally annoying. Changes in present USA noise-measurement procedures and noise-control guidelines are proposed that provide more accurate...

Acoustical, sensory, and psychological research data and procedures for their use in predicting effects of environmental noises.

The Schultz [(1978). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 64, 377–405]; Fidell et al. [(1991). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 221–233] and Finegold et al. [(1994). Noise Control Eng. 42, 25–30] curves present misleading research information regarding DENL/DENL levels of environmental noises from transportation vehicles and the impact of annoyance and associated adverse effects on people living in residential areas. The reasons are shown to be jointly due to (a) interpretations of early research data, (b) plotting of annoyance data for noise exposure from different types of transportation vehicles on a single set of coordinates, and (c) the assumption that the effective, as heard, levels of noise from different sources are proportional to day, night level (DNL)/day, evening night level (DENL) levels measured at a common-point outdoors. The subtraction of on-site attenuations from the measured outdoor levels of environmental noises used in the calculation of DNL/DENL provides new metrics, labeled EDNL/EDENL, for the calculation of...

Acoustical model and theory for predicting effects of environmental noise on people

Hearing losses estimated for exposure to industrial and gun noise and for ‘‘typical’’ nosocusis are applied to the distributions of the hearing levels of adult males and females of the general population of an industrialized society unscreened for exposure to noise or ear disease. Noise exposure and demographic data applicable to the United States, and procedures for predicting noise‐induced permanent threshold shift (NIPTS) and nosocusis, were used to account for some 8.7 dB of the 13.4 dB average difference between the hearing levels at high frequencies for otologically and noise screened versus unscreened male ears; (this average difference is for the average of the hearing levels at 3000, 4000, and 6000 Hz, average for the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentiles, and ages 20–65 years). According to the present calculations, this difference is due, in order of importance, to (1) nosocusis, (2) exposure to gun noise, and (3) exposure of workers to industrial noise. For these same frequencies and overall average, adjustments for nosocusis accounts for 2 dB of the 5.9‐dB difference between the hearing levels of screened and unscreened female ears. For the average at 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz, the overall differences between the screened and unscreened populations is but 3.4 dB for males and 2.9 dB for females. The adjustment procedures reduced these differences to −0.5 and 0.9 dB, respectively.

Karl D. Kryter

Papers

The Handbook of Hearing and the Effects of Noise: Physiology, Psychology, and Public Health

Hearing loss from gun and railroad noise—Relations with ISO Standard 1999

Acoustical, sensory, and psychological research data and procedures for their use in predicting effects of environmental noises.

Acoustical model and theory for predicting effects of environmental noise on people

Effects of nosocusis, and industrial and gun noise on hearing of U.S. adults.