Associations between noise sensitivity and sleep, subjectively evaluated sleep quality, annoyance, and performance after exposure to nocturnal traffic noise
TL;DR: The results suggest that alterations of subjective evaluation of sleep were determined by physical parameters of the noise but modified by individual factors like noise sensitivity.
Abstract: In order to determine the influence of noise sensitivity on sleep, subjective sleep quality, annoyance, and performance after nocturnal exposure to traffic noise, 12 women and 12 men (age range, 19-28 years) were observed during four consecutive nights over a three weeks period. After a habituation night, the participants were exposed with weekly permuted changes to air, rail and road traffic noise. Of the four nights, one was a quiet night (32 dBA), while three were noisy nights with exposure to equivalent noise levels of 39, 44, and 50 dBA in a permuted order. The traffic noise caused alterations of most of the physiological parameters, subjective evaluation of sleep, annoyance, and performance. Correlations were found between noise sensitivity and subjective sleep quality in terms of worsened restoration, decreased calmness, difficulty to fall asleep, and body movements. The results suggest that alterations of subjective evaluation of sleep were determined by physical parameters of the noise but modified by individual factors like noise sensitivity.
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TL;DR: Results are summarized of a systematic, qualitative review of studies over the past 5 years describing effects, groups assumed to be at risk, and mechanisms pertaining to noise sensitivity and learned helplessness.
Abstract: Vulnerable or susceptible groups are mentioned in most reviews and documents regarding noise and health. But only a few studies address this issue in a concrete and focused way. Groups at risk most often mentioned in the literature are children, the elderly, the chronically ill and people with a hearing impairment. The other categories encountered are those of sensitive persons, shiftworkers, people with mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia or autism), people suffering from tinnitus, and fetuses and neonates. The mechanism for this vulnerability has not been clearly described and relevant research has seldom focused on the health effects of noise in these groups in an integrated manner. This paper summarizes the outcomes and major conclusions of a systematic, qualitative review of studies over the past 5 years. This review was prepared for the 10 th Conference on Noise as a Public Health Problem (ICBEN, 2011). Evidence is reviewed describing effects, groups assumed to be at risk, and mechanisms pertaining to noise sensitivity and learned helplessness.
144 citations
TL;DR: Noise sensitivity was found to influence total noise annoyance and aircraft noise annoyance but to a lesser degree annoyance due to road traffic noise, and was associated with reported physical health, but not with reported mental health.
Abstract: One hundred and ninety residents around Frankfurt Airport (46% female; 17-80 years) were interviewed concerning noise annoyance due to transportation noise (aircraft, road traffic), perceived mental and physical health, perceived environmental quality, and noise sensitivity. The aim of the analyses was to test whether noise sensitivity reflects partly general environmental sensitivity and is associated with an elevated susceptibility for the perception of mental and physical health. In this study, the reported physical and mental health variables were not associated with noise exposure but with noise annoyance, and were interpreted to reflect nonspecific codeterminants of annoyance rather than noise effects. Noise sensitivity was found to influence total noise annoyance and aircraft noise annoyance but to a lesser degree annoyance due to road traffic noise. Noise sensitivity was associated with reported physical health, but not with reported mental health. Noise-sensitive persons reported poorer environmental quality in their residential area than less sensitive persons in particular with regard to air traffic (including the facets noise, pollution, and contaminations) and quietness. Other aspects of the perceived quality of the environment were scarcely associated with noise sensitivity. This indicates that noise sensitivity is more specific and a reliable predictor of responses to noise from the dominant source (in this case air traffic) rather than a predictor of the individual perception of the environmental quality in general.
123 citations
TL;DR: The results of this research indicate that it may be important for the public's health to update existing noise-related policies or develop new ones to control and abate noise concerns in urban communities.
107 citations
TL;DR: A significant association was found between noise exposure and the risk of getting up tired and not rested in the morning in the general population and indicates that road traffic noise exposure during the night may have day-after effects.
Abstract: This study investigates the association between night time road traffic noise exposure (Lnight) and self-reported sleep problems. Logistic regression was performed in a large population based cohort study (GLOBE), including over 18 000 subjects, to study the association between exposure at the dwelling facade and sleep problems. Measures of sleep problems were collected by questionnaire with two questions: “Do you in general get up tired and not well rested in the morning?” and “Do you often use sleep medication or tranquilizers?” After adjustment for potential confounders, a significant association was found between noise exposure and the risk of getting up tired and not rested in the morning. Although prevalence of medication use was higher at higher noise levels compared to the reference category (Lnight<35 dB), after adjustment for covariates this association was not significant. Long-term road traffic noise exposure is associated with increased risk of getting up tired and not rested in the morning i...
93 citations
TL;DR: Having a window facing a yard, water or green space was associated to a substantially reduced risk of noise annoyance and concentration problems, and if this window was the bedroom window, sleeping problems were less likely.
Abstract: Background: Access to a quiet side in one’s dwelling is thought to compensate for higher noise levels at the most exposed facade. It has also been indicated that noise from combined traffic sources causes more noise annoyance than equal average levels from either road traffic or railway noise separately. Methods: 2612 persons in Malmo, Sweden, answered to a residential environment survey including questions on outdoor environment, noise sensitivity, noise annoyance, sleep quality and concentration problems. Road traffic and railway noise was modeled using Geographic Information System. Results: Access to a quiet side, i.e., at least one window facing yard, water or green space, was associated with reduced risk of annoyance OR (95%CI) 0.47 (0.38–0.59), and concentration problems 0.76 (0.61–0.95). Bedroom window facing the same environment was associated to reduced risk of reporting of poor sleep quality 0.78 (0.64–1.00). Railway noise was associated with reduced risk of annoyance below 55 dB(A) but not at higher levels of exposure. Conclusions: Having a window facing a yard, water or green space was associated to a substantially reduced risk of noise annoyance and concentration problems. If this window was the bedroom window, sleeping problems were less likely.
83 citations
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TL;DR: The results suggest that it is important to recognize both the unity and diversity ofExecutive functions and that latent variable analysis is a useful approach to studying the organization and roles of executive functions.
12,182 citations
TL;DR: Techniques of recording, scoring, and doubtful records are carefully considered, and Recommendations for abbreviations, types of pictorial representation, order of polygraphic tracings are suggested.
Abstract: With the vast research interest in sleep and dreams that has developed in the past 15 years, there is increasing evidence of noncomparibility of scoring of nocturnal electroencephalograph-electroculograph records from different laboratories. In 1967 a special session on scoring criteria was held at the seventh annual meeting of the Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep. Under the auspices of the UCLA Brain Information, an ad hoc committee composed of some of the most active current researchers was formed in 1967 to develop a terminology and scoring system for universal use. It is the results of the labors of this group that is now published under the imprimatur of the National Institutes of Health. The presentation is beautifully clear. Techniques of recording, scoring, and doubtful records are carefully considered. Recommendations for abbreviations, types of pictorial representation, order of polygraphic tracings are suggested.
8,001 citations
TL;DR: The overall picture is one of a disparate range of impairment following sleep loss and sleep fragmentation, with executive impairment appears to be more closely related to hypoxaemic events than daytime sleepiness.
378 citations
TL;DR: A review of the relationship between noise exposure and the subjective reactions to it was conducted by as mentioned in this paper, which indicated that remarkably similar results have been obtained across different nationalities with different measurement techniques.
Abstract: Social surveys of the relationship between noise exposure and the subjective reactions to it were reviewed This review indicated that remarkably similar results have been obtained across different nationalities with different measurement techniques Only a small percentage (typically less than 20%) of the variation in individual reaction is accounted for by noise exposure Analysis of potential errors in both measurement of noise and reaction suggests that elimination of errors would only slightly increase the observed correlations Variables, such as attitude to the noise source and sensitivity to noise, account for more variation in reaction than does noise exposure The weaker relationship between noise exposure and attitude than between reaction and attitude suggests that the attitude/reaction relationship is not entirely due to noise exposure causing a change in attitude itself Noise/reaction correlations based on individual data are significantly lower in studies of impulsive noise than nonimpulsive noise This may be caused, in part, by the restricted range of noise exposure studied in some socioacoustic investigations of impulsive noise However, the significantly higher correlations of attitude and reaction in impulsive noise studies suggest that attitude plays an even larger part, while noise exposure plays a lesser part in determining reaction to impulsive noise, relative to nonimpulsive noise
319 citations
"Associations between noise sensitiv..." refers background in this paper
...[12],[39],[40] However, the situation for night time annoyance is more complex, since this feeling results from noise experienced during consciousness, i....
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21 Jan 1993
TL;DR: Noise sensitivity levels did fall with recovery from depression but still remained high, suggesting an underlying high level of noise sensitivity, and was related to higher tonic skin conductance and heart rate and greater defence/startle responses during noise exposure in the laboratory.
Abstract: Noise, a prototypical environmental stressor, has clear health effects in causing hearing loss but other health effects are less evident. Noise exposure may lead to minor emotional symptoms but the evidence of elevated levels of aircraft noise leading to psychiatric hospital admissions and psychiatric disorder in the community is contradictory. Despite this there are well documented associations between noise exposure and changes in performance, sleep disturbance and emotional reactions such as annoyance. Moreover, annoyance is associated with both environmental noise level and psychological and physical symptoms, psychiatric disorder and use of health services. It seems likely that existing psychiatric disorder contributes to high levels of annoyance. However, there is also the possibility that tendency to annoyance may be a risk factor for psychiatric morbidity. Although noise level explains a significant proportion of the variance in annoyance, the other major factor, confirmed in many studies, is subjective sensitivity to noise. Noise sensitivity is also related to psychiatric disorder. The evidence for noise sensitivity being a risk factor for psychiatric disorder would be greater if it were a stable personality characteristic, and preceded psychiatric morbidity. The stability of noise sensitivity and whether it is merely secondary to psychiatric disorder or is a risk factor for psychiatric disorder as well as annoyance is examined in two studies in this monograph: a six-year follow-up of a group of highly noise sensitive and low noise sensitive women; and a longitudinal study of depressed patients and matched control subjects examining changes in noise sensitivity with recovery from depression. A further dimension of noise effects concerns the impact of noise on the autonomic nervous system. Most physiological responses to noise habituate rapidly but in some people physiological responses persist. It is not clear whether this sub-sample is also subjectively sensitive to noise and whether failure to habituate to environmental noise may also represent a biological indicator of vulnerability to psychiatric disorder. In these studies noise sensitivity was found to be moderately stable and associated with current psychiatric disorder and a disposition to negative affectivity. Noise sensitivity levels did fall with recovery from depression but still remained high, suggesting an underlying high level of noise sensitivity. Noise sensitivity was related to higher tonic skin conductance and heart rate and greater defence/startle responses during noise exposure in the laboratory. Noise sensitive people attend more to noises, discriminate more between noises, find noises more threatening and out of their control, and react to, and adapt to noises more slowly than less noise sensitive people.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
307 citations
"Associations between noise sensitiv..." refers background in this paper
...[7],[13],[22] In addition, selfselection had to be taken into account....
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...[9],[10],[11],[12],[13] Individuals who are repeatedly annoyed by noise in different situations characterize themselves as noise sensitive....
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