Traffic Noise and Annoyance in Windsor, Ontario: Community Tolerance Limits and Effects of Context on Noise Responses

Introduction Recent research on the impacts of environmental noise on health and wellbeing can be broadly categorized by three themes. The first theme is the enduring concept of soundscapes or the sonic characteristics of indoor and outdoor environments in situated locales. Health researchers consider soundscapes as context dependent, within which perceptions of sounds can be modified by individual and social factors and consequently affect health (Lercher et al. 2013). The second theme of noise and health research is related to soundscapes, but pursues a generalizable understanding of cognitive appraisals of noise as measured by annoyance or disturbance in relation to exposures, which are predominantly from road, rail and air transport. For example, research in this area is concerned with establishing reliable dose-response relationships between traffic noise and different levels of annoyance (Miedema and Oudshoorn 2001). Annoyance and sleep disturbance are perhaps the most important moderator of adverse health outcomes associated with noise exposure and lead to the third theme concerning direct measurements of health. Cardiovascular diseases including hypertension and myocardial ischemia are the most severe outcomes identified, but research has also demonstrated links to auditory development and cognitive performance among other health measures (Babisch 2008, Matheson