Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

Noise and Nuisance Policy

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

2. Work Strategy

Phase 1- Review

The review phase was split into three stages;

Existing reviews of the effects of environmental noise were consulted in some depth. Close examination of the Health Council of the Netherlands study (NETHERLANDS 94) showed much commonality with the objectives of this study. The Health Council of the Netherlands were tasked to consider:

"What health effects are to be expected from exposure to noise at different sound levels?" and "What health-based exposure limits can be derived from these data?"

In view of the significant amount of work which had already been done, this review took the Health Council of the Netherlands report as the starting point. Further reviews carried out since 1994 were then consulted. The key reviews are summarised in table 1 below;

Table 1: Key review papers

Reference Summary information
BERGLUND 95 Berglund and Lindvall examined the effects of noise in the community for the WHO. They link potential health effects to noise immission in the environment rather than to noise emission from specific sources.
JOB 95 Job outlines a model of the potential psychological factors and their possible causal roles in the production of noise related health effects.
JOB 96 Job extends the 1995 work to explore the potential causal link between noise exposure in a residential setting and detrimental health effects.
SHAW 96 Shaw looks at the effects of various levels of noise exposure on human activities and health. He considers criteria and guidelines based on social studies.
THOMPSON 96 Thompson updates her earlier reviews of noise and health by looking at the potential modifiers to the relationship between noise and health indicators and views these as intervening factors in the causal chain which either reinforce or diminish the original stress response.
BERGLUND 96 Berglund reviews the concept of health, health effects of community noise and environmental health control in the context of aircraft noise. She looks at dose-response relationships, vulnerable groups and threshold levels. The work appears to be very largely based on BERGLUND 95.
MORRELL 97 Morrell examines evidence for health effects due to aircraft noise.
NETHERLANDS 97 This report proposes a system of environmental noise exposure metrics for risk assessment of and policy decision-making on the adverse effects of environmental noise on health and the well-being of residential communities. One chapter is dedicated to the effects of environmental noise exposure.
LUDLOW 97 This paper outlines the uncertainties which make the interpretation of epidemiological studies into noise and health effects difficult. It looks briefly at the evidence for health effects of noise and proposes alternative research approaches to examine causative mechanisms between noise and health.
IEH 97 This report is based on review papers prepared for a workshop on non-auditory effects of noise. One paper by Stansfeld reviews environmental noise and health. Summary reviews on noise exposure and specific effects are also given. The available evidence is critically reviewed and recommendations made for future research.

This stage had two main aims; to summarise the standards and limits used to control environmental noise in different countries, and to understand where possible the origin and justification for any resulting numerical noise limits or targets.

The starting points for this stage of the study were two key publications. In 1994 Dieter Gottlob of the German Federal Ministry of the Environment presented the results of an extensive review of community noise regulations (GOTTLOB 95). In 1995 work was completed at NPL on a review of national practices on the assessment of industrial noise (PORTER 95). For this project, updated information was sought from national experts across Europe. Three main areas in the measurement and assessment of environmental noise were followed up:

1. the legislative or regulatory framework,
2. any noise limits where specified to include indicators used (noise units),
3. relevant research findings or other information against which the national standards criteria or limits had been developed.

The information was requested in tabular form where possible. Copies of the written request for information, including an example table, are reproduced in Appendix I. The results are presented in section 4.2.

Phase 2 - Feasibility study

This phase considered whether effects-based standards can realistically be set in the UK context. The findings are based on;

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Published 12 September 2000
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