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Paper: Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health by Michael A Nissenbaum, Jeffery J Aramini, Christopher D Hanning
Article Tags: Windfarms
Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health
Michael A Nissenbaum1, Jeffery J Aramini2, Christopher D Hanning3
1 Northern Maine Medical Center, Fort Kent, Maine, USA
2 Intelligent Health Solutions, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
3 University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester, United Kingdom
Abstract
Industrial wind turbines (IWTs) are a new source of noise in previously quiet rural environments. Environmental noise is a public health concern, of which sleep disruption is a major factor. To compare sleep and general health outcomes between participants living close to IWTs and those living further away from them, participants living between 375 and 1400 m (n = 38) and 3.3 and 6.6 km (n = 41) from IWTs were enrolled in a stratified cross-sectional study involving two rural sites. Validated questionnaires were used to collect information on sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index – PSQI), daytime sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Score – ESS), and general health (SF36v2), together with psychiatric disorders, attitude, and demographics.
Descriptive and multivariate analyses were performed to investigate the effect of the main exposure variable of interest (distance to the nearest IWT) on various health outcome measures. Participants living within 1.4 km of an IWT had worse sleep, were sleepier during the day, and had worse SF36 Mental Component Scores compared to those living further than 1.4 km away. Significant dose-response relationships between PSQI, ESS, SF36 Mental Component Score, and log-distance to the nearest IWT were identified after controlling for gender, age, and household clustering. The adverse event reports of sleep disturbance and ill health by those living close to IWTs are supported.
Source: noiseandhealth.org
2012-11-04 18:43:59
Source:
What’s noise got to do with weather? /weather/2012/11/whos-lying-a-simple-tale-of-unbiased-global-warming-facts-goldilocks-meets-lost-in-space-the-three-mysterious-co2-planets-2437580.html
1. Three researchers in mostly unrelated fields with very strong undeclared biases: two are on the Advisory Group on the anti-wind lobbyist organization Wind Vigilance.
2. Three thanked reviewers who are paid testifiers at anti-wind litigation and siting reviews; one — Phillips — has found a new cash flow after his tobacco-funding, for research showing that jaw- and throat-cancer causing chewing tobacco just wasn’t that bad, dried up
3. A weak — at best — correlation has been asserted to be causation; this is very poor form
4. They’ve excluded bias as a possible cause of the weak effect; perhaps because one of the authors, Nissenbaum, had already used a very poorly constructed survey technique which was literally guaranteed to turn minor and ignored symptoms into major sources of stress at both sites in the preceding years.
For full references, links and analysis, please see here:
http://www.quora.com/Wind-Power/A-study-in-Noise-and-Health-shows-that-wind-farms-cause-people-to-lose-sleep-How-reliable-is-this-study/answer/Mike-Barnard