title: Impact of wind turbine sound on general health, sleep disturbance and annoyance of workers: a pilot- study in Manjil wind farm, Iran.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The wind turbine's sound seems to have a proportional effect on health of people living near to wind farms. This study aimed to investigate the effect of noise emitted from wind turbines on general health, sleep and annoyance among workers of manjil wind farm, Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total number of 53 workers took part in this study. Based on the type of job, they were categorized into three groups of maintenance, security and office staff. The persons' exposure at each job-related group was measured by eight-hour equivalent sound level (LAeq, 8 h). A Noise annoyance scale, Epworth sleepiness scale and 28-item general health questionnaire was used for gathering data from workers. The data were analyzed through Multivariate Analysis of variance (MANOVA) test, Pillai's Trace test, Paired comparisons analysis and Multivariate regression test were used in the R software.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results showed that, response variables (annoyance, sleep disturbance and health) were significantly different between job groups. The results also indicated that sleep disturbance as well as noise exposure had a significant effect on general health. Noise annoyance and distance from wind turbines could significantly explain about 44.5 and 34.2 % of the variance in sleep disturbance and worker's general health, respectively. General health was significantly different in different age groups while age had no significant impact on sleep disturbance. The results were reverse for distance because it had no significant impact on health, but sleep disturbance was significantly affected.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We came to this conclusion that wind turbines noise can directly impact on annoyance, sleep and health. This type of energy generation can have potential health risks for wind farm workers. However, further research is needed to confirm the results of this study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Milad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abbasi
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Reza
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Monazzam
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Arash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Akbarzadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Seyyed Abolfazl
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Zakerian
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Hossein
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Ebrahimi
keywords: General health; Noise annoyance; Sleep disturbance; Wind turbine noise