Nächtliche Verkehrslärm- belästigung in Deutschland: individuelle und regionale Unterschiede in der NAKO Gesundheitsstudie

Background

Noise annoyance is associated with adverse health-related conditions and reduced wellbeing. Thereby, subjective noise annoyance depends on the objective noise exposure and is modified by personal and regional factors.

Objective

How many participants of the German National Cohort Study (GNC; NAKO Gesundheitsstudie) were annoyed by transportation noise during nighttime and what factors were associated with noise annoyance?

Materials and methods

This cross-sectional analysis included 86,080 participants from 18 study centers, examined from 2014 to 2017. We used multinomial logistic regression to investigate associations of personal and regional factors to noise annoyance (slightly/moderately or strongly/extremely annoyed vs. not annoyed) mutually adjusting for all factors in the model.

Results

Two thirds of participants were not annoyed by transportation noise during nighttime and one in ten reported strong/extreme annoyance with highest percentages for the study centers Berlin-Mitte and Leipzig. The strongest associations were seen for factors related to the individual housing situation like the bedroom being positioned towards a major road (OR of being slightly/moderately annoyed: 4.26 [95% CI: 4.01;4.52]; OR of being strongly/extremely annoyed: 13.36 [95% CI: 12.47;14.32]) compared to a garden/inner courtyard. Participants aged 40-60 years and those in low- and medium-income groups reported greater noise annoyance compared to younger or older ones and those in the high-income group.

Conclusion

In this study from Germany, transportation noise annoyance during nighttime varied by personal and regional factors.

Rights

Use and reproduction:


CC BY 4.0

Please note that individual components of the publication may be subject to other licensing or copyright conditions.

Cite

Citation style:
Could not load citation form.