Review: extraaural health effects of aircraft noise

Abstract

The number of aircraft movements in our society is increasing at a rapid rate. As a consequence the airspace is becoming more crowded, in particular in the vicinity of airports. As a consequence pollution (both air pollution and noise) near the airports increases. One solution to 'rush hours' in the airspace around airports is to spread the number of flights more evenly over time. This leads to more flights in the sensitive parts of the day: evening and night. This leads to community reaction and places the potential health effects of noise in the focus of societal attention. Human functioning is affected by noise in many ways. Effects of noise become detectable at a relatively low noise level, approx. 30 dB(A). Above which noise levels and under what conditions these effects become threatening to health is still largely unknown. This holds true for cardiovascular effects, mental health, mortality rates, medicine consumption, pregnancy, delivery and physical development. On some aspects more certainty exists. Night time noise when it causes people to wake up or prevents them from falling asleep, or when it frequently disturbs the structure of sleep below the waking level, can be detrimental to health. Both for awakening reactions and for annoyance, exposure-response relations are rather well established. Reading ability is hampered by noise. For the vegetative aspects, no clear and stable exposure-response relations are known at this moment. Hopefully this conference will fill in the gap.