The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted the Neighborhood Environmental Survey (NES) among residents living near 20 airports in the United States (US). This survey aimed to assess exposure to aircraft noise and to update the dose-response curve relating noise exposure to community annoyance. Over 10,000 respondents answered questions related to both noise and non-noise annoyances and provided an overall rating of their neighborhood. Day-night average sound level (DNL) noise exposures for the residential addresses of survey participants were estimated using aviation noise modeling. The NES dose-response curve for high annoyance from aviation noise indicated that more people are likely to be highly annoyed for a given aviation DNL exposure than was estimated from previous dose-response relationships. This paper reports findings from additional analyses of the NES to assess the relationships among noise exposure, cumulative annoyance, and self-reported neighborhood rating. Annoyance from non-aviation noise sources was not found to be a statistically significant modifier of the aviation high annoyance dose-response curve. However, non-noise annoyance was found to modify the dose-response curve, suggesting that individuals cumulatively annoyed may be more sensitive to high annoyance from aviation noise exposure. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) revealed two main components: one loading on all types of noise and non-noise annoyances, and the other loading primarily on aircraft noise annoyance. Neighborhood rating was associated with cumulative annoyance, but less so with aviation noise exposure or aviation noise-related annoyance. These findings suggest the need for further research on cumulative annoyance and the potential synergistic impacts of combined noise exposure from multiple sources on population health.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study did not receive any funding

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The study used only openly available de-identified human data that were originally located at: https://www.airporttech.tc.faa.gov/Products/Airport-Safety-Papers-Publications/Airport-Safety-Detail/ArtMID/3682/ArticleID/2845/Analysis-of-NES Protocols for the survey were reviewed and approved by the Westat Institutional Review Board. Survey protocols and questionnaire are available in the technical report.

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