The need for and access to quiet areas in relation to annoyance, health and noise-sensitivity

摘要

This paper presents the findings of an explorative study into the association between annoyance, subjective health and medication use and access to, the need for and dissatisfaction with access to places usually referred to as "quiet areas". To this end, data from a neighborhood survey in 2006 among 3,607 persons of 18 years and older in The Netherlands (Kruize et al. 2011), were re-analyzed. Due to the rapid urbanization in the Netherlands, the characteristics of (green) recreational areas within cities are changing and will increasingly become scarce. From a public health point of view this is an unwanted trend, since there is sufficient evidence that spending time in green places with relatively low levels of noise or preferably areas with high acoustic quality (Brown 2010) is beneficial for our health and well-being (Gezondheidsraad 2006). One of the mechanisms may be that spending time in areas with high acoustic quality can help restore or compensate for the adverse health effects of noise in the residential environment. The hypothesis is that health benefits can be obtained by spatial variation in noise levels (Gezondheidsraad 2006). But how large should this spatial variation in sound levels be in order to obtain health benefits and at what aggregation level (city-level, neighborhood level, and street level) does this spatial variation play a role? The very limited research into the health benefits of spending time in areas with high acoustic quality near their homes suggests that a quiet side of a home, but also access to quiet in the immediate home environment, reduces annoyance by noise (Gezondheidsraad 2006; Kleaboe 2001; Kleaboe et al. 2002; Gidlof-Gunnarsson & Ohrstrom 2007).