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IJERPH
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Community Response to Environmental Noise
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Community Response to Environmental Noise

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 2791

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Takashi Yano

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto 860-8555, Japan
Interests: community response to noise; socio-acoustic survey; environmental noise; annoyance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Shigenori Yokoshima

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Research Institute for Engineering, Kanagawa University, Yokohama 221-8686, Japan
Interests: environmental noise and health; secondary analysis of socio-acoustic survey data; activity interferences
Dr. Mark Brink

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Privatdozent, Federal Office for the Environment, 3003 Bern, Switzerland
Interests: environmental noise; noise annoyance; noise-induced sleep disturbances; health effects of noise; noise metrics; environmental policy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sleep effect and annoyance are identified as the most severe and second-most-severe health outcomes resulting from noise exposure, according to the WHO's "Burden of Disease from Environmental Noise". The WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region, published in 2018, incorporate two noise indices: Lden and Lnight. All guideline values for Lden were derived from exposure–response relationships outlined in the WHO systematic review on annoyance. Similarly, values for Lnight were determined based on exposure–response relationships from a WHO systematic review on sleep disturbance.

For a comprehensive understanding of community responses to noise, it is essential to study not only annoyance but also activity interference, including sleep disturbance. Since the release of the WHO Guidelines, numerous studies have been conducted globally. Annoyance and activity interference caused by noise exhibit variations on hourly, yearly, and regional to global scales. Therefore, continuous accumulation of social survey data on community responses to noise is crucial for the next systematic review on a worldwide scale.

We invite the submission of studies related to community responses to environmental noise, as well as those addressing future noise policies, for publication in the Special Issue titled "Community Response to Environmental Noise" in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Prof. Dr. Takashi Yano
Dr. Shigenori Yokoshima
Dr. Mark Brink
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

 

Keywords

  • environmental noise
  • annoyance
  • activity disturbance
  • exposure–response relationships
  • effects of acoustic and non-acoustic factors
  • effects of intervention (i.e., change of infrastructure and social conditions, etc.)
  • combined noise annoyance
  • combined effects with other agents
  • noise policies

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 3302 KiB  
Article
Sleep Disturbance Caused by Step Changes in Railway Noise Exposure and Earthquakes
by Takashi Morihara, Yasuhiro Murakami, Koji Shimoyama, Makoto Morinaga, Shigenori Yokoshima, Sohei Tsujimura, Yasuhiro Hiraguri and Takashi Yano
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21(6), 783; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21060783 - 16 Jun 2024
Viewed by 700
Abstract
Kyushu Shinkansen and conventional railway lines run parallel in the areas 5 km north of Kumamoto Station (northern area) and 12 km south of the station (southern area). Following the operation of the Kyushu Shinkansen Line in 2011, the adjacent conventional railway line [...] Read more.
Kyushu Shinkansen and conventional railway lines run parallel in the areas 5 km north of Kumamoto Station (northern area) and 12 km south of the station (southern area). Following the operation of the Kyushu Shinkansen Line in 2011, the adjacent conventional railway line in the north was elevated, a new station was operated in the south, and large earthquakes struck the Kumamoto area from March to April 2016. Sleep disturbances were compared before and after the interventions and earthquakes based on noise source (Shinkansen and conventional railways), area (northern and southern), and house type (detached and apartment) through socio-acoustic surveys from 2011 to 2017. The Shinkansen railway caused significantly less sleep disturbances in detached houses in the north after compared to before the earthquakes, presumably due to more frequent closures of bedroom windows in northern detached houses following the earthquakes. The Shinkansen railway caused significantly more sleep disturbances in apartments in the south after compared to before the earthquakes, presumably because the Shinkansen slowed down immediately after the earthquakes and returned to normal speed during the survey, suddenly increasing the noise exposure. There was no significant difference in the other six cases investigated. Overall, the interventions may not have caused significant differences in sleep disturbances. This article expands on the congress paper by Morihara et al. presented in the “Community Response to Noise” session at the 52nd International Congress and Exhibition on Noise Control Engineering in Makuhari, Japan, organized by the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Community Response to Environmental Noise)
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Review

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31 pages, 2390 KiB  
Review
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Noise Annoyance as a Determinant of Physiological Changes Linked to Disease Promotion
by Emily Senerth, Tejanth Pasumarthi, Neha Tangri, Bhavya Abbi, Skye Bickett, James P. McNamee, David S. Michaud and Rebecca L. Morgan
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21(7), 956; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21070956 - 22 Jul 2024
Viewed by 321
Abstract
This systematic review investigates the certainty of evidence (CoE) regarding noise annoyance as a determinant of biological changes known to contribute to disease development. We searched PubMed MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central, and CINAHL for English-language comparative studies conducted on humans of any age [...] Read more.
This systematic review investigates the certainty of evidence (CoE) regarding noise annoyance as a determinant of biological changes known to contribute to disease development. We searched PubMed MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central, and CINAHL for English-language comparative studies conducted on humans of any age from 1 January 1940, to 28 August 2023. Further, studies that provided quantitative data on the relationship between noise annoyance and biomarkers of interest were included. Where possible, random-effects meta-analyses were used to calculate the odds ratios of noise annoyance on biomarkers and biological conditions considered to be risk factors for developing health effects. The risk of bias of individual studies was assessed using the Risk of Bias of Non-randomized Studies of Exposures (ROBINS-E) instrument. The CoE for each outcome was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. The search identified 23 primary studies reporting on relevant biomarkers. Although some studies and pooled estimates suggest a possible association between noise annoyance and biological measures, the CoE overall is very low due to concerns with the risk of bias, inconsistency, and imprecision in the estimates of effects. In the context of environmental impact assessment, where guidelines aim to mitigate the prevalence of populations experiencing a high level of noise annoyance, our results suggest that such practices should be grounded in the understanding that annoyance is health-relevant because it reflects an undesirable reaction to noise, rather than a precursor to chronic physical health conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Community Response to Environmental Noise)
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14 pages, 1808 KiB  
Review
Measuring Community Response to Noise—Factors Affecting the Results of Annoyance Surveys
by Truls Gjestland
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21(4), 420; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21040420 - 29 Mar 2024
Viewed by 1325
Abstract
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 of the area population that are highly annoyed as a function of the noise exposure level. It [...] Read more.
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 of the area population that are highly annoyed as a function of the noise exposure level. It is a well-known fact that the survey results are not only dependent on the accumulated noise exposure, DNL, DENL, or similar, but also on various other factors such as maximum levels, exposure patterns, noise spectra, etc. A re-analysis of previously reported surveys shows that the results are also, to a large extent, dependent on survey-specific factors like the wording of the annoyance questions, how the questionnaires are presented, response scales, methods of scoring highly annoyed, etc. This paper discusses and quantifies the influence of such factors and suggests ways of comparing results from surveys that have been conducted according to different protocols and different analysis methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Community Response to Environmental Noise)
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