Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

Noise and Nuisance Policy

Health Effect Based Noise Assessment Methods:
A Review and Feasibility Study
September 1998

1. Introduction

Research carried out for the Wilson Report published in 1963 established that there were a wide range of environmental noise problems in this country and that there was considerable potential for these problems to increase without determined action (WILSON 63). Despite a great deal of subsequent research and development, a considerable investment in noise control technology, a wide-ranging technical debate nationally and internationally, and many new standards and regulations, quite a few of these problems are still outstanding (BERRY 97). The most recent national noise survey carried out in 1990 showed that average noise levels outside houses had hardly changed since an earlier survey carried out 18 years earlier in 1972 (SARGENT 93). At the same time noise complaints to local government, airports, industry and others continue to increase. The problem of noise has not been solved.

Noise control is not simply a matter of setting targets and then taking action as required because there are often severe technical, economic and social constraints on what can be achieved in practice. While the costs of noise control are usually more or less tangible, the benefits must be carefully weighed against these costs, and this is hard to do when the most widely used indicator of noise effects is simply "annoyance". It is clear that a general change-over to some more concrete indicator of effects such as effects on health, might enable future noise targets to be defined with greater transparency. Monetary evaluations of noise effects would also be attractive but there is little evidence that any progress can be made in this area, at least in the short to medium term.

The 1996 Green Paper "Future Noise Policy" (EC 97) shows that the European Commission is moving towards noise control action as a response to increasing concerns of possible health effects. The EC is working towards a Directive to harmonise noise assessment methodology, to establish target values, and to oblige member states to take action to reach such targets. Noise guidelines based on a liberal interpretation of health effects, reported and edited on behalf of WHO by Berglund and Lindvall (BERGLUND 95), appear to have been influential in the development of the Green Paper. However all such guidelines are open to different interpretations. Other recent documents, such as the review published by the Health Council of the Netherlands, also examine the issues of noise and health. The topic of noise and health was discussed in depth at a workshop on Non-auditory Health Effects of Noise held in Leicester in May 1997. A large number of future research requirements and topics were identified, illustrating continuing scientific uncertainty in this general area (IEH 97).

In view of these developments, the idea of standards which are closely linked to possible health effects requires critical investigation. The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), together with the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) began a project in January 1998 for the UK Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) to review noise standards used for assessing the health impact of environmental noise. The objectives of the project were set out to:

Put as simply as possible, the DETR want to know how, or even whether it is possible, to derive robust health effect based noise standards. Do health effects actually exist at typical levels of environmental noise and if so, can they can be reliably quantified? What other factors should be considered in establishing practical effect-based assessment methods?

The starting point is a summary of current knowledge of health effect based noise assessment methods, based on previous reviews. In the time available, it has only been possible to extract the key information required to address the defined objectives. This study then goes beyond previous reviews by examining the feasibility of establishing effect based standards. Both the available scientific evidence and the practicality of existing regulatory noise limits are found to be relevant.

Section 2 sets out the work strategy and explains how the work was done. Section 3 examines the scientific evidence underlying the relationship between noise and health. It considers the concept of health, the potential and actual impacts of noise on health, and the levels suggested by research below which these effects are unlikely to be observed. This section also looks at the uncertainties associated with relating the separate effects to an overall impact on health.

Section 4 looks at practical noise criteria and how these differ from those based on scientific evidence alone. It briefly reviews the environmental noise regulations and standards used in the UK and other EU countries and comments on the extent to which these are based on scientific data alone, or on other factors.

Section 5 offers guidance for the interpretation of the WHO guideline criteria. It is important that the WHO guidelines are properly understood in the context in which they were written. Section 6 summarises the key findings of the study. Section 7 considers the way ahead.

References to published literature are listed at the end of the report. The list is arranged alphabetically, with details given in the text in brackets using the first named author and year of publication. Throughout this report the term 'standard' is used to describe an assessment method, whereas it can also mean a British, European, or International standard.

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Published 12 September 2000
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