Risultati finali
The soundscape studies of the RANCH-project consist of three complementary parts of research. The first part refers to new attempts to map children's acoustic exposures over the 24 hours (at school and at home) as well as to assess comparatively children and parents' perceived soundscapes. The second part refers to new attempts to assess children's opportunities for psychological restoration at home, under the assumption that the availability of acoustically restorative sub-environments may constitute a protective or supportive factor. The third part refers to a children's health evaluation model in which children's general health is modelled as a function of acoustic exposures at school and at home with annoyance to road-traffic and aircraft noise as intervening variables and psychological restoration, sleep quality and parental social support as modifying protective factors.
In the first part of research, children's and adult's 24 hour acoustic soundscapes were mapped by sound recordings, indoors and outdoors, at homes and schools. Two laboratory experiments were conducted (UK and Sweden), in which children and adults assessed loudness and pleasantness of soundscapes. The UK study focused on soundscapes dominated by aircraft and road traffic noise at school, and the Swedish study on soundscapes dominated by road traffic noise at home. It was found that children are as skilled as their parents in assessing the loudness of sounds and in judging the unpleasantness of soundscapes. This supports the validity of annoyance responses in children, i.e., children are as able as adults to judge and respond to noise. Moreover, children from a wide-range of aircraft noise exposures did not differ in their judgements of soundscapes. This means that children respond to noise in the same way regardless of their level of chronic noise exposure. For both children and adults, the relationship between unpleasantness and sound level of soundscapes were clearly weaker than the corresponding relationship for loudness. Thus, conventional acoustical measures based on A-weighted sound level constitute a model that cannot handle the pleasantness-unpleasantness dimension of soundscapes.
In the second part of research, a psychometrically robust tool was developed: the Children's Psychological Restoration Scale (CPRS). The CPRS measures school children's opportunities for psychological restoration in the home environment. The CPRS was included in the core questionnaire study of the RANCH project. It was found that children "high" in psychological restoration reported systematically less aircraft and road-traffic noise annoyance both at school and at home. Children "low" in psychological restoration did not show such distinct effects on annoyance. The CPRS findings support the hypothesis that psychological restoration (based on a "restorative" home environment) would avert attention from environmental stressors (e.g., noise), or conversely direct attention to "restorative" qualities of the environment. Thus, psychological restoration in the home environment may protect against adverse noise reactions by promoting children's well being.
In the third part of research, a health evaluation model for children was developed and tested at a pan-European level, in order to identify potential harmful and protective influences on children's health and development. This model included assessing children's opportunities for psychological restoration when living in noise dominated soundscapes. The psychological restoration questionnaire was part of the airport field studies and the Swedish road traffic noise study. It was found that children's psychological restoration combined with adult social support may serve as protective factors for reducing children's self-reported annoyance at school and at home as well as their sleep disturbance associated with road traffic.
The RANCH project examined exposure-effect relationships between chronic aircraft noise exposure, chronic road traffic noise and combinations of chronic aircraft and road traffic noise exposure and health in 9-10 year old children living around major airports in the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. Children were selected to participate on the basis of external noise exposure at school, which was predicted from noise contour maps, modelling and on-site measurements. Schools matched for socio-economic position within countries were selected. Children completed a questionnaire that contained questions about aircraft annoyance and road traffic noise annoyance at school and home and their general health. Blood pressure was measured in a sub-sample in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Parents completed a questionnaire that contained questions about the child's mental health and about the family's health and social background. A total of 2844 children from 89 schools around Schiphol Amsterdam, Barajas Madrid and London Heathrow airports participated in this study.
The data from the three countries was pooled and analysed using multilevel modelling, which enabled data at both the school (e.g. aircraft noise exposure) and the individual level (e.g. mother's educational attainment) to be fitted in the same model. Analyses adjusted for age, gender, centre (NL, Spain or UK), mother's educational attainment, employment status, crowding, home ownership, long standing illness, main language spoken at home, parental support for school work and classroom glazing and the other noise exposure variable/s. For noise annoyance additional adjustments were made for home glazing, length of school enrolment and length of residency. For blood pressure there were additional adjustments for prematurity, parental high blood pressure, ponderosity, low birth weight, cuff size, room temperature and home glazing.
There was a non-linear exposure-response association between chronic aircraft noise exposure and annoyance at school and at home in all three countries. There was a linear exposure-response association between chronic road traffic noise exposure and annoyance at school in all three countries. The effect for road traffic noise was weaker than aircraft noise in terms of children reporting less annoyance for road traffic noise exposure than for aircraft noise exposure. There was no relationship between aircraft noise exposure and self-reported health or overall mental health. There was no relationship between road traffic noise exposure and self-reported health or overall mental health.
There was inconclusive evidence for an effect of aircraft noise or road traffic noise at school on children's blood pressure. Aircraft noise exposure at school was not associated with children's blood pressure in the pooled analyses. Aircraft noise exposure at home was associated with systolic blood pressure. For road traffic noise, there was an inverse relationship for systolic blood pressure and no association for diastolic blood pressure or heart rate. Combined exposure had an significant effect on annoyance. Children exposed to aircraft noise experienced greater annoyance from aircraft noise when also exposed to road traffic noise and vice versa, children exposed to road traffic noise who were also exposed to aircraft noise report higher annoyance from road traffic.Combined exposure was not related to self-reported health or overall mental health.
The RANCH project provides a robust evidence base to inform pan-European noise policy based on health and cognitive effects in children. The following policy recommendations are suggested, based on the evidence from the RANCH studies.
It is recommended that action be taken at the European level to provide healthy educational environments for children attending high noise exposed schools. In the planning process, noise exposure should be considered with other environmental aspects. It is recommended that new schools should not be planned close to existing airports, where noise exposure exceeds the WHO (2000) recommended levels for external noise. It is advised that measures should be implemented to reduce noise in existing schools, exposed to high levels of noise. The effects of sound insulation at school on children's cognitive performance should be investigated in further research. If sound insulation is found to have ameliorative effects on impairments in cognitive performance, steps should be taken to sound insulate those schools exposed to the potentially harmful levels of aircraft noise. Noise annoyance responses are evidence of impairment of quality of life. Sound insulation in schools, by reducing indoor noise levels, may help to reduce annoyance in children from both aircraft and road traffic noise. Reading comprehension and annoyance responses can be used to indicate the presence of aircraft noise effects in children and these could be considered the priority for action.
Further research should be carried out to examine the role of noise interference in teacher communication in the causation of noise effects and the possible additional effects of classroom acoustics on children's cognitive performance. Studies should be carried out on whether cognitive impairments diminish if children are removed from noisy environments or whether cognitive impairments increase if children remain in noisy environments. Such studies would help to test the effects of aircraft noise on cognitive performance and discover whether noise-related effects are temporary or permanent. The RANCH project provides a robust evidence base to inform pan-European noise policy based on health and cognitive effects in children. Our data provides policy makers with evidence to include with other factors in deciding on safe levels taking into account multiple sources of evidence.
Further work is required to agree the recommended levels of noise exposure for children based on the RANCH data. On the evidence of this study low levels of road traffic noise will not interfere in children's school - work. The results of this study suggest that similar noise limits and guidelines on aircraft noise for children can be applied across Europe as regards daytime and evening exposures. The implementation of any such noise limit and guidelines would require the long-term monitoring of health, annoyance and cognitive outcomes for children. Tools developed in RANCH can be used to monitor these outcomes. Comprehensive studies should be carried out on the health effects on children (and adults) of the distribution of aircraft noise exposure over day and night and over the weekdays. It is important for children exposed to adverse environmental conditions such as aircraft and road traffic noise to have quiet, relaxing areas at or near home for psychological restoration.
Further research is needed to understand and explore the health promoting possibilities of restorative quiet environments for children and adults for additional environmental stressors, as well as noise. Such research should be conducted in the spirit of integrated intervention, that is to eliminate, reduce or avoid children's adverse effects of noise either by reduction or elimination of the noise or by prevention or by stopping the progression of adverse effects (school performance and health). Moreover, the research should focus on identifying the most prominent components of healthy urban and suburban environments for children's development. By improving urban and suburban environments it is potentially possible to also improve children's health.
The RANCH project examined exposure-effect relationships between chronic aircraft noise exposure, chronic road traffic noise exposure and combinations of chronic aircraft and road traffic noise exposure and cognitive performance in 9-10 year old children living around major airports in the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. Children were selected to participate on the basis of external noise exposure at school, which was predicted from noise contour maps, modelling and on-site measurements. Schools matched for socio-economic position within countries were selected. The same standardised paper and pen cognitive tests of episodic memory (recognition memory, conceptual recall and information recall), working memory, prospective memory and sustained attention were used in each country and nationally standardised reading comprehension tests were employed. Parents completed a questionnaire about the family's health and social background. A total of 2844 children from 89 schools around Schiphol Amsterdam, Barajas Madrid and London Heathrow airports participated in this study.
The data from the three countries was pooled and analysed using multilevel modelling. Analyses for aircraft noise exposure and road traffic noise exposure were conducted separately to examine single-exposure effects and were entered as a multiplicative interaction to examine combined-exposure effects. Analyses adjusted for age, gender, centre (NL, Spain or UK), mother's educational attainment, employment status, crowding, home ownership, long standing illness, main language spoken at home, parental support for school work and classroom glazing and the other noise exposure variable (e.g. for aircraft noise exposure analyses, road traffic noise exposure was also adjusted for).
Aircraft noise exposure was related to impaired performance in reading comprehension and recognition memory in all three countries. Reading age in children exposed to high levels of aircraft noise was delayed by up to 2 months in the UK and by up to 1 month in the Netherlands for a 5 dB change in noise exposure. The relationship between aircraft noise and reading comprehension and recognition memory was linear and could not be accounted for by sociodemographic variables or acute noise during testing.
Aircraft noise exposure was not associated with impairment of episodic memory - as measured by conceptual recall and information recall, working memory, prospective memory or sustained attention. Road traffic noise exposure was linearly associated with increased epidosic memory scores - as measured by conceptual recall and information recall but was not associated with reading comprehension, recognition memory, working memory, prospective memory or sustained attention. Combined noise exposure was related to reading comprehension; high levels of road traffic noise moderated the effect of high levels of aircraft noise on reading. There were no effects of combined exposure on either episodic memory, working memory, prospective memory or sustained attention.
In a sub-sample of 24 Dutch schools the impact of air and road traffic noise exposure was also investigated with the Neurobehavioural Evaluation System (NES), which is a computerised test battery. By means of the NES aspects of attention, psychomotor performance, perceptual coding and memory were measured. Significant associations were found between both aircraft noise exposure and road traffic noise exposure and the complex tasks of the switching attention test. No effects were found for aircraft noise exposure or road traffic noise exposure and motor functioning, perceptual coding or memory. Combined noise had a significant effect on simple reaction time and the attention test. Performance for reaction time and attention increased with increasing aircraft noise exposure in schools with low road traffic noise exposure and decreased with increasing aircraft noise exposure in schools with high road traffic noise exposure. In conclusion, the effects observed in the more complex tasks are in line with the finding that complex tasks are influenced by noise exposure.
The objectives of this Swedish part of the EU funded RANCH-project were to provide knowledge on exposure-effect relationships between road traffic noise in the home, and the effects on sleep comparatively for school children and adults. Field studies were conducted at a number of study sites from low to high levels of road traffic noise exposure (below 55 dB to over 64 dB LAeq,24h). Sleep quality was assessed in questionnaire interviews with 160 children (9-12 years) and 160 parents, and in a sub-study on sleep among half of the subjects assessed by sleep logs and wrist-actigraphy during four nights.
Conclusions from this study are that children have better reported sleep quality and fewer awakenings than parents, whereas there is no evidence of a difference in difficulties falling asleep and alertness in the morning between children and parents. There is a significantly higher rate of body motility registered by wrist-actigraphy for children but this most probably explained by differences in body motility due to age rather than an indication of poorer sleep among children than among adults. A multiple linear regression analysis was used to examine the variance in sleep quality both for children and for parents. Interference from road traffic noise is shown to be of significant importance. A number of factors related to health and well-being are also of significant importance for children's sleep, e.g. feelings of stress, feeling worried/irritable/sad/or depressed and down, going to bed late, not living at home all the time, feeling sick/nauseous, sleep difficulty reported by parents and a higher score on SDQ- conduct - children's difficulties reported by parents. Several variables related to well-being and social support, as well as position of bedroom windows, are of significant importance for parents sleep, e.g. lower general well-being, noise sensitivity, long-term illness, going late to bed, marital status and sleep time. There is a moderate exposure-effect relationship between road traffic noise and difficulties falling asleep, awakenings, sleep quality and alertness in the morning for parents. For children a similar, but weaker, response pattern is seen for sleep quality and alertness in the morning. There is some evidence of more problems with sleepiness during daytime among children exposed to noise levels above 55 dB.
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