Associations between noise sensitivity and sleep, subjectively evaluated sleep quality, annoyance, and performance after exposure to nocturnal traffic noise.

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.

Protection goals for residents in the vicinity of civil airports.

Based on extensive and detailed reviews the present paper suggests evaluation criteria for aircraft noise for the prediction of noise effects and for the protection of residents living in the vicinity of (newly constructed or extended) civil airports. The protection concept provides graded evaluation criteria: Critical loads indicate noise loads that shall be tolerated only exceptionally during a limited time. Protection Guides are central evaluation criteria for taking actions to reduce noise immission. Threshold values inform about measurable physiological and psychological reactions due to noise exposures where long term adverse health effects are not expected. Evaluation criteria are provided for various protection goals, for hearing, communication and sleep, for the avoidance of annoyance and of suspected cardiovascular diseases. As protection of the residents is understood as a dynamic process, these criteria must be repeatedly tested and adapted to new scientific findings.

Disturbed sleep patterns and limitation of noise.

Due to the undisputable restorative function of sleep, noise-induced sleep disturbances are regarded as the most deleterious effects of noise. They comprise alterations during bedtimes such as awakenings, sleep stage changes, body movements and after-effects such as subjectively felt decrease of sleep quality, impairment of mood and performance. The extents of these reactions depend on the information content of noise, on its acoustical parameters and are modified by individual influences and by situational conditions. Intermittent noise, that is produced by air traffic, rail traffic and by road traffic during the night is particularly disturbing and needs to be reduced. Suitable limits are suggested.