title: Long-term effects of noise reduction measures on noise annoyance and sleep disturbance: the Norwegian facade insulation study.
abstract: The Norwegian facade insulation study includes one pre-intervention and two post-intervention surveys. The facade-insulating measures reduced indoor noise levels by 7 dB on average. Before the intervention, 43% of the respondents were highly annoyed by noise. Half a year after the intervention, the proportion of respondents who were highly annoyed by road traffic noise had been significantly reduced to 15%. The second post-intervention study (2 yr after the first post-intervention study) showed that the proportion of highly annoyed respondents had not changed since the first post-intervention study. The reduction in the respondents' self-reported sleep disturbances (due to traffic noise) also remained relatively stable from the first to the second post-intervention study. In the control group, there were no statistically significant differences in annoyance between the pre-intervention and the two post-intervention studies. Previous studies of traffic changes have reported that people "overreact" to noise changes. This study indicated that when considering a receiver measure, such as facade insulation, the effect of reducing indoor noise levels could be predicted from exposure-response curves based on previous studies. Thus no evidence of an "overreaction" was found.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Transport Economics (TOI), Gaustadalèen 21, 0349 Oslo, Norway. astrid.amundsen@toi.no
authors.forename: Astrid H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Amundsen
authors.forename: Ronny
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Klæboe
authors.forename: Gunn Marit
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Aasvang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003252:Construction Materials; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006798:Housing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009624:Noise, Transportation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009664:Norway; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult