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Aircraft noise and mental health: I. Prevalence of individual symptoms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Alex Tarnopolsky ,
Gareth Watkins  and
David J. Hand
Alex Tarnopolsky*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, London
Gareth Watkins
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, London
David J. Hand
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Alex Tarnopolsky, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF.
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Synopsis

A domiciliary survey (sample size circa 6000) was conducted in areas of different aircraft exposure affected by London (Heathrow) Airport. Respondents were urban dwellers age 16+. Since no differences were found in the prevalence of manifest psychiatric disorders, the frequency of 27 individual acute and chronic symptoms was investigated. Many acute symptoms showed an increase with noise, and this was particularly evident for waking at night, irritability, depression, difficulty in getting to sleep, swollen ankles, burns/cuts/minor accidents, and skin troubles. Two chronic symptoms, tinnitus and ear problems, showed evidence of an increase with noise, while most chronic symptoms were more common in low noise conditions. Results are controlled for the effects of age, sex and other standard epidemiological variables. Irrespective of their association with noise, most symptoms, chronic and acute, were more frequent among those respondents who also reported high annoyance. Suggestions for the analysis of surveys of health effects by noise are put forward.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , November 1980 , pp. 683 - 698
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

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