Source: European Commission DG
Environment - Science for
Environment Policy
Subject: Possible long-term effects
of aircraft noise on children's
cognition
Date published: November 8, 2013
Levels of aircraft noise
experienced in primary schools
might affect aspects of
children's cognition, even
several years after they have
left the school, new research
suggests. Researchers revealed
that 15-16 year olds who had
attended noisier primary schools
six years earlier found aircraft
noise more disturbing or
annoying, even after accounting
for aircraft noise at their
current school.
Living in noisy environments has
been linked to various negative
impacts on human health, with
studies showing associations with
heart disease, sleep disturbance and
stress. Across Europe, 80 million
people, 20% of the total population,
are thought to be regularly exposed
to noise levels considered
unacceptable by health experts.
A previous investigation into
environmental noise's effects on
children, the EU RANCH project,
revealed negative effects of
aircraft noise on several aspects of
cognition, including reading
comprehension and memory. RANCH
studied 2844 children in 2001-2003,
aged between nine and ten, attending
89 primary schools near major
airports in the UK, the Netherlands
and Spain.
The current study provides a
follow-up to this work by assessing
whether these effects on cognition
were still apparent in the same
children in 2008, when they were
aged 15 to 16 and attending
secondary school. Such
'longitudinal' studies, which follow
individuals over long periods, are
important to assess how the effects
of noise change. For example, if
children are not able to adapt to
noise, its impacts on their
cognition could increase over time.
This study focused on the UK
children who had been part of the
original RANCH study. 461 pupils
were tested, and data on noise
levels in the secondary schools as
well as in their original primary
schools were analysed.
The children were tested for reading
comprehension, given a psychological
distress score (based on answers to
a questionnaire) and asked to rate
how much aircraft noise disturbed or
annoyed them. The researchers also
accounted for other factors which
may influence the results, such as
socioeconomic background.
The results showed that noise
annoyance was significantly related
to noise levels that the teenagers
had experienced when they were
younger at primary school, even when
the levels at secondary school had
been taken into account. Annoyance
can be an important indicator of a
poor quality of life, the
researchers state, potentially
leading to stress and associated
illness.
Poorer reading comprehension scores
in the teenagers were associated
with higher noise levels at primary
school. While this finding was not
statistically significant, the
researchers suggest that this may be
a result of the relatively small
number of people studied, rather
than a lack of an effect. Other,
larger, studies have demonstrated a
significant negative link between
noise levels and reading
comprehension. Finally, they found
no association between higher noise
levels at primary school and higher
psychological distress scores.
Taken alongside the RANCH findings,
the researchers conclude that this
study adds to evidence that high
levels of noise might impair
children's cognitive development,
particularly in terms of reading
comprehension and noise annoyance.
URL:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/349na4.pdf