Review of field studies of aircraft noise-induced sleep disturbance
TL;DR: A literature review of recent field studies of AN-ISD finds that reliable generalization of findings to population-level effects is complicated by individual differences among subjects, methodological and analytic differences among studies, and predictive relationships that account for only a small fraction of the variance in the relationship between noise exposure and sleep disturbance.
Abstract: Aircraft noise-induced sleep disturbance (AN-ISD) is potentially among the more serious effects of aircraft noise on people. This literature review of recent field studies of AN-ISD finds that reliable generalization of findings to population-level effects is complicated by individual differences among subjects, methodological and analytic differences among studies, and predictive relationships that account for only a small fraction of the variance in the relationship between noise exposure and sleep disturbance. It is nonetheless apparent in the studied circumstances of residential exposure that sleep disturbance effects of nighttime aircraft noise intrusions are not dramatic on a per-event basis, and that linkages between outdoor aircraft noise exposure and sleep disturbance are tenuous. It is also apparent that AN-ISD occurs more often during later than earlier parts of the night; that indoor sound levels are more closely associated with sleep disturbance than outdoor measures; and that spontaneous awa...
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TL;DR: Methods for quantitative health impact assessments (HIA) are demonstrated in two case studies: proposals to extend an airport in south-east England and to build a waste incinerator in London, demonstrating that the health of the exposed populations would be affected by both developments, but that the added burden of disease would be very low in comparison with that in the existing population levels.
Abstract: Findings from epidemiological studies can be used to make quantitative predictions of health impacts of new developments in a land-use planning context. In UK practice, exposures that may impact on health are described in environmental statements, but the health outcomes are rarely assessed explicitly. Methods for quantitative health impact assessments (HIA) are demonstrated in two case studies: proposals to extend an airport in south-east England and to build a waste incinerator in London. Four dimensions were assessed: particulate matter and gases, airborne carcinogens, transport accidents and noise. Calculations demonstrate that the health of the exposed populations would be affected by both developments, but that the added burden of disease would be very low in comparison with that in the existing population levels. Epidemiology provides a relevant method for extending environmental impact assessment. Quantitative assessment will allow decision-making authorities to make more informed decisions on pro...
7 citations
Cites background from "Review of field studies of aircraft..."
...Drawing on a review of evidence (Michaud et al, 2007), the likelihood of the average person being awakened by an aircraft noise event in the range of 90–100 dBA SEL (Sound Exposure Level, 80–95 dBA Lmax) is about 1 in 75....
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TL;DR: An overview of sleep disturbance research internationally is provided to document the similarities and differences between the various research approaches and research results.
Abstract: Research on nighttime sleep disturbance due to community noise sources, particularly from exposure to aircraft noise, has been conducted for over a half decade. However, there are still no national environmental noise policies (i.e., laws and regulations) promulgated which prescribe a specific criterion for an exposure limit which is regulatory in nature. In the U.S., the new American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Noise Standard, ANSI S12.9-2008/Part 6, Quantities and Procedures for Description and Measurement of Environmental Sound - Part 6: Methods for Estimation of Awakenings Associated with Outdoor Noise Events Heard in Homes, does provide the currently recommended exposure-response relationship used in the U.S. In Europe, there has also been significant laboratory and field research on sleep disturbance, although the U.S. and European research publications often use different research methodologies, different noise metrics and different meta-analysis techniques. The current article will provide a brief overview of sleep disturbance research internationally to document the similarities and differences between the various research approaches and research results.
7 citations
Cites background from "Review of field studies of aircraft..."
...[2,3] The comprehensive review of the sleep disturbance research literature conducted by Michaud, et al.[4] According to these authors: “This literature review of recent field studies of AN-ISD finds that reliable generalization of findings to population-level effects is complicated by individual differences among subjects, methodological and analytic differences among studies, and predictive relationships that account for only a small fraction of the variance in the relationship between noise exposure and sleep disturbance....
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...review of the sleep disturbance research literature conducted by Michaud, et al.[4] According to these authors: “This...
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01 Feb 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reviewed the English-language technical literature on infrasonic and low-frequency noise effects and identified the most salient effects of noise produced by a future large civil tiltrotor aircraft on crew, passengers, and communities near landing areas.
Abstract: This report reviews the English-language technical literature on infrasonic and low-frequency noise effects; identifies the most salient effects of noise produced by a future large civil tiltrotor aircraft on crew, passengers, and communities near landing areas; and recommends research needed to improve understanding of the effects of such noise on passengers, crew, and residents of areas near landing pads.
5 citations
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: This brief review will consider some fundamental issues concerning noise and sleep disturbance, outline some of the developments over the last five years and consider the continuing and emerging issues with some suggestions how research will develop in the future.
Abstract: It is generally accepted that the developed and developing world are becoming noisier places with eg. mobile ring tones having the ability to disturb the most tranquil place at any time of day or night. Noise pollution has been described as the ‘modern unseen plague’. Humans are responsible for most of the noise that disturbs sleep in the home – a loud snoring partner is an unwelcome bed-fellow. Noise is generally considered ‘bad’ but is frequently a by-product of well-accepted operations which are valued by the community at large (ie. ‘good’) such as most forms of modern transportation. This is similar to many controversial issues in the world today where there is need for a balance to be achieved between the potential damage that noise can cause and the benefits that accrue to many from modern transport systems. Scientist’s role in such dilemmas is to assess the potential damage to health and well-being and determine the point at which unacceptable damage is likely to occur. Part of the increase in global noise is due to continued growth of a 24h culture in most developed countries which results in more activity and noise intrusion into the night-time and sleep period. Not only is the environment becoming noisier but it seems from some annoyance data that our ‘ears are becoming bigger’ as we are becoming more sensitive and annoyed by noise, particularly aircraft noise. Noise can have a number of unwanted effects ie. reduces the fidelity of communication, interferes with cognitive processes, causes annoyance and complaint and disturbs sleep. Many workers in the field consider sleep disturbance to be the most detrimental to health. This brief review will consider some fundamental issues concerning noise and sleep disturbance, outline some of the developments over the last five years and consider the continuing and emerging issues with some suggestions how research will develop in the future. Noise and sleep disturbance
5 citations
Cites background from "Review of field studies of aircraft..."
...Michaud et al. (2007) reviewed this early work, but did not include the DLR studies, and concluded that, sleep disturbance due to aircraft noise was potentially one of the most serious effects on humans....
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TL;DR: It appears that even relatively moderate sleep restriction can seriously impair waking neurobehavioral functions in healthy adults, and sleep debt is perhaps best understood as resulting in additional wakefulness that has a neurobiological "cost" which accumulates over time.
Abstract: OBJECTIVES: To inform the debate over whether human sleep can be chronically reduced without consequences, we conducted a dose-response chronic sleep restriction experiment in which waking neurobehavioral and sleep physiological functions were monitored and compared to those for total sleep deprivation. DESIGN: The chronic sleep restriction experiment involved randomization to one of three sleep doses (4 h, 6 h, or 8 h time in bed per night), which were maintained for 14 consecutive days. The total sleep deprivation experiment involved 3 nights without sleep (0 h time in bed). Each study also involved 3 baseline (pre-deprivation) days and 3 recovery days. SETTING: Both experiments were conducted under standardized laboratory conditions with continuous behavioral, physiological and medical monitoring. PARTICIPANTS: A total of n = 48 healthy adults (ages 21-38) participated in the experiments. INTERVENTIONS: Noctumal sleep periods were restricted to 8 h, 6 h or 4 h per day for 14 days, or to 0 h for 3 days. All other sleep was prohibited. RESULTS: Chronic restriction of sleep periods to 4 h or 6 h per night over 14 consecutive days resulted in significant cumulative, dose-dependent deficits in cognitive performance on all tasks. Subjective sleepiness ratings showed an acute response to sleep restriction but only small further increases on subsequent days, and did not significantly differentiate the 6 h and 4 h conditions. Polysomnographic variables and delta power in the non-REM sleep EEG-a putative marker of sleep homeostasis--displayed an acute response to sleep restriction with negligible further changes across the 14 restricted nights. Comparison of chronic sleep restriction to total sleep deprivation showed that the latter resulted in disproportionately large waking neurobehavioral and sleep delta power responses relative to how much sleep was lost. A statistical model revealed that, regardless of the mode of sleep deprivation, lapses in behavioral alertness were near-linearly related to the cumulative duration of wakefulness in excess of 15.84 h (s.e. 0.73 h). CONCLUSIONS: Since chronic restriction of sleep to 6 h or less per night produced cognitive performance deficits equivalent to up to 2 nights of total sleep deprivation, it appears that even relatively moderate sleep restriction can seriously impair waking neurobehavioral functions in healthy adults. Sleepiness ratings suggest that subjects were largely unaware of these increasing cognitive deficits, which may explain why the impact of chronic sleep restriction on waking cognitive functions is often assumed to be benign. Physiological sleep responses to chronic restriction did not mirror waking neurobehavioral responses, but cumulative wakefulness in excess of a 15.84 h predicted performance lapses across all four experimental conditions. This suggests that sleep debt is perhaps best understood as resulting in additional wakefulness that has a neurobiological "cost" which accumulates over time.
2,694 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that in the clinical setting, actigraphy is reliable for evaluating sleep patterns in patients with insomnia, for studying the effect of treatments designed to improve sleep, in the diagnosis of circadian rhythm disorders (including shift work), and in evaluating sleep in individuals who are less likely to tolerate PSG, such as infants and demented elderly.
Abstract: In summary, although actigraphy is not as accurate as PSG for determining some sleep measurements, studies are in general agreement that actigraphy, with its ability to record continuously for long time periods, is more reliable than sleep logs which rely on the patients' recall of how many times they woke up or how long they slept during the night and is more reliable than observations which only capture short time periods Actigraphy can provide information obtainable in no other practical way It can also have a role in the medical care of patients with sleep disorders However, it should not be held to the same expectations as polysomnography Actigraphy is one-dimensional, whereas polysomnography comprises at least 3 distinct types of data (EEG, EOG, EMG), which jointly determine whether a person is asleep or awake It is therefore doubtful whether actigraphic data will ever be informationally equivalent to the PSG, although progress on hardware and data processing software is continuously being made Although the 1995 practice parameters paper determined that actigraphy was not appropriate for the diagnosis of sleep disorders, more recent studies suggest that for some disorders, actigraphy may be more practical than PSG While actigraphy is still not appropriate for the diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing or of periodic limb movements in sleep, it is highly appropriate for examining the sleep variability (ie, night-to-night variability) in patients with insomnia Actigraphy is also appropriate for the assessment of and stability of treatment effects of anything from hypnotic drugs to light treatment to CPAP, particularly if assessments are done before and after the start of treatment A recent independent review of the actigraphy literature by Sadeh and Acebo reached many of these same conclusions Some of the research studies failed to find relationships between sleep measures and health-related symptoms The interpretation of these data is also not clear-cut Is it that the actigraph is not reliable enough to the access the relationship between sleep changes and quality of life measures, or, is it that, in fact, there is no relationship between sleep in that population and quality of life measures? Other studies of sleep disordered breathing, where actigraphy was not used and was not an outcome measure also failed to find any relationship with quality of life Is it then the actigraph that is not reliable or that the associations just do not exist? The one area where actigraphy can be used for clinical diagnosis is in the evaluation of circadian rhythm disorders Actigraphy has been shown to be very good for identifying rhythms Results of actigraphic recordings correlate well with measurements of melatonin and of core body temperature rhythms Activity records also show sleep disturbance when sleep is attempted at an unfavorable phase of the circadian cycle Actigraphy therefore would be particularly good for aiding in the diagnosis of delayed or advanced sleep phase syndrome, non-24-hour-sleep syndrome and in the evaluation of sleep disturbances in shift workers It must be remembered, however, that overt rest-activity rhythms are susceptible to various masking effects, so they may not always show the underlying rhythm of the endogenous circadian pacemaker In conclusion, the latest set of research articles suggest that in the clinical setting, actigraphy is reliable for evaluating sleep patterns in patients with insomnia, for studying the effect of treatments designed to improve sleep, in the diagnosis of circadian rhythm disorders (including shift work), and in evaluating sleep in individuals who are less likely to tolerate PSG, such as infants and demented elderly While actigraphy has been used in research studies for many years, up to now, methodological issues had not been systematically addressed in clinical research and practice Those issues have now been addressed and actigraphy may now be reaching the maturity needed for application in the clinical arena
2,321 citations
"Review of field studies of aircraft..." refers background or methods in this paper
...(2003) suggested that actimetry is more likely to detect sleep than to detect wake states, leading to high sensitivity but low specificity and accuracy....
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..., 2003). Outdoor noise measurements were taken of aircraft noise event data to link with actimetric data recorded in successive 30 s epochs. Responses collected by actimetry from the 50 subjects at each site were pooled and averaged for comparison with aircraft noise events for that site. The actimeter clocks remained synchronous within ±5 s. An aircraft noise event in the Ollerhead et al. study was defined as the occurrence of an outdoor sound in excess of a 60 dB threshold. The number of aircraft noise events during the night varied across the eight sites from 1 to 20. The 400 subjects awakened from sleep 6457 times, of which 351 (5.4%) awakenings could be attributed to aircraft noise events. Awakenings attributable to aircraft noise events were far less common than those ascribed to toilet visits, tending to children, and other non-noise specific reasons. Sleep became more disturbed in general as the night progressed, but not necessarily because of exposure to aircraft noise events. The main finding of Ollerhead et al. (1992) was that very few of the test subjects were at risk of substantial sleep loss due to aircraft noise. Ollerhead et al. (1992) noted that sleep was largely unaffected by aircraft noise events at outdoor Lmax values lower than about 80 dB (SEL ~90 dB)....
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...(2002, 2003). Figure 3 revises the ANSI (2000) relationship by including the behavioral awakening data reported by Passchier-Vermeer et al....
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..., 2003). Outdoor noise measurements were taken of aircraft noise event data to link with actimetric data recorded in successive 30 s epochs. Responses collected by actimetry from the 50 subjects at each site were pooled and averaged for comparison with aircraft noise events for that site. The actimeter clocks remained synchronous within ±5 s. An aircraft noise event in the Ollerhead et al. study was defined as the occurrence of an outdoor sound in excess of a 60 dB threshold. The number of aircraft noise events during the night varied across the eight sites from 1 to 20. The 400 subjects awakened from sleep 6457 times, of which 351 (5.4%) awakenings could be attributed to aircraft noise events. Awakenings attributable to aircraft noise events were far less common than those ascribed to toilet visits, tending to children, and other non-noise specific reasons. Sleep became more disturbed in general as the night progressed, but not necessarily because of exposure to aircraft noise events. The main finding of Ollerhead et al. (1992) was that very few of the test subjects were at risk of substantial sleep loss due to aircraft noise. Ollerhead et al. (1992) noted that sleep was largely unaffected by aircraft noise events at outdoor Lmax values lower than about 80 dB (SEL ~90 dB). Ollerhead et al. 1992 showed that above 90 dB SEL, the awakening rate due to an aircraft noise event was somewhere between 1 in 60 and 1 in 100. Ollerhead et al. (1992) attributed the infrequency of AN-ISD to the familiarity and adaptation of neighborhood residents to the noise source. Although large variations in numbers of aircraft noise events were observed across the eight study locations, variability in actimetric responses was relatively small. Ollerhead et al. (1992) further noted that sensitivity to aircraft noise was lower during the earlier part of the sleep period than during the later part of the sleep period....
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...Thus, it is challenging to summarize and predict population-level sleep disturbance by aircraft noise (Finegold and Elias, 2002; Anderson and Miller, 2005; Passchier-Vermeer, 2003)....
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TL;DR: It is suggested that cumulative nocturnal sleep debt had a dynamic and escalating analog in cumulative daytime sleepiness and that asymptotic or steady-state sleepiness was not achieved in response to sleep restriction.
Abstract: To determine whether a cumulative sleep debt (in a range commonly experienced) would result in cumulative changes in measures of waking neurobehavioral alertness, 16 healthy young adults had their sleep restricted 33% below habitual sleep duration, to an average 4.98 hours per night [standard deviation (SD) = 0.57] for seven consecutive nights. Subjects slept in the laboratory, and sleep and waking were monitored by staff and actigraphy. Three times each day (1000, 1600, and 2200 hours) subjects were assessed for subjective sleepiness (SSS) and mood (POMS) and were evaluated on a brief performance battery that included psychomotor vigilance (PVT), probed memory (PRM), and serial-addition testing, Once each day they completed a series of visual analog scales (VAS) and reported sleepiness and somatic and cognitive/emotional problems. Sleep restriction resulted in statistically robust cumulative effects on waking functions. SSS ratings, subscale scores for fatigue, confusion, tension, and total mood disturbance from the POMS and VAS ratings of mental exhaustion and stress were evaluated across days of restricted sleep (p = 0.009 to p = 0.0001). PVT performance parameters, including the frequency and duration of lapses, were also significantly increased by restriction (p = 0.018 to p = 0.0001). Significant time-of-day effects were evident in SSS and PVT data, but time-of-day did not interact with the effects of sleep restriction across days. The temporal profiles of cumulative changes in neurobehavioral measures of alertness as a function of sleep restriction were generally consistent. Subjective changes tended to precede performance changes by 1 day, but overall changes in both classes of measure were greatest during the first 2 days (P1, P2) and last 2 days (P6, P7) of sleep restriction. Data from subsets of subjects also showed: 1) that significant decreases in the MSLT occurred during sleep restriction, 2) that the elevated sleepiness and performance deficits continued beyond day 7 of restriction, and 3) that recovery from these deficits appeared to require two full nights of sleep. The cumulative increase in performance lapses across days of sleep restriction correlated closely with MSLT results (r = -0.95) from an earlier comparable experiment by Carskadon and Dement (1). These findings suggest that cumulative nocturnal sleep debt had a dynamic and escalating analog in cumulative daytime sleepiness and that asymptotic or steady-state sleepiness was not achieved in response to sleep restriction.
2,040 citations
"Review of field studies of aircraft..." refers background in this paper
...People probably do not fully adapt to accumulated sleep debt (Dinges et al., 1997; van Dongen et al., 2003)....
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01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors reviewed the current knowledge about the role of actigraphy in the evaluation of sleep disorders and concluded that actigraphys can provide useful information and that it may be a cost-effective method for assessing specific sleep disorders.
Abstract: 1.0 BACKGROUND ACTIGRAPHY HAS BEEN USED TO STUDY SLEEP/WAKE PATTERNS FOR OVER 20 YEARS. The advantage of actigraphy over traditional polysomnography (PSG) is that actigraphy can conveniently record continuously for 24-hours a day for days, weeks or even longer. In 1995, Sadeh et al.,1 under the auspices of the American Sleep Disorders Association (now called the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, AASM), reviewed the current knowledge about the role of actigraphy in the evaluation of sleep disorders. They concluded that actigraphy does provide useful information and that it may be a “cost-effective method for assessing specific sleep disorders...[but that] methodological issues have not been systematically addressed in clinical research and practice.” Based on that task force’s report, the AASM Standards of Practice Committee concluded that actigraphy was not indicated for routine diagnosis or for assessment of severity or management of sleep disorders, but might be a useful adjunct for diagnosing insomnia, circadian rhythm disorders or excessive sleepiness.2 Since that time, actigraph technology has improved, and many more studies have been conducted. Several review papers have concluded that wrist actigraphy can usefully approximate sleep versus wake state during 24 hours and have noted that actigraphy has been used for monitoring insomnia, circadian sleep/wake disturbances, and periodic limb movement disorder.3,4 This paper begins where the 1995 paper left off. Under the auspices of the AASM, a new task force was established to review the current state of the art of this technology.
1,918 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed and validated automatic scoring methods to distinguish sleep from wakefulness based on wrist activity using wrist actigraphs during overnight polysomnography, which provided valuable information about sleep and wakefulness that could be useful in both clinical and research applications.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop and validate automatic scoring methods to distinguish sleep from wakefulness based on wrist activity. Forty-one subjects (18 normals and 23 with sleep or psychiatric disorders) wore a wrist actigraph during overnight polysomnography. In a randomly selected subsample of 20 subjects, candidate sleep/wake prediction algorithms were iteratively optimized against standard sleep/wake scores. The optimal algorithms obtained for various data collection epoch lengths were then prospectively tested on the remaining 21 subjects. The final algorithms correctly distinguished sleep from wakefulness approximately 88% of the time. Actigraphic sleep percentage and sleep latency estimates correlated 0.82 and 0.90, respectively, with corresponding parameters scored from the polysomnogram (p < 0.0001). Automatic scoring of wrist activity provides valuable information about sleep and wakefulness that could be useful in both clinical and research applications.
1,556 citations