Journal article
Sociodemographic Patterns of Exposure to Civil Aircraft Noise in the United States
Environmental health perspectives, Vol.130(2), pp.27009-27009
02/2022
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/118522
PMID: 35167327
Appears in Aviation Sustainability Center (ASCENT)
Abstract
Communities with lower socioeconomic status and higher prevalence of racial/ethnic minority populations are often more exposed to environmental pollutants. Although studies have shown associations between aircraft noise and property values and various health outcomes, little is known about how aircraft noise exposures are sociodemographically patterned.
Our aim was to describe characteristics of populations exposed to aviation noise by race/ethnicity, education, and income in the United States.
Aircraft noise contours characterized as day-night average sound level (DNL) were developed for 90 U.S. airports in 2010 for DNL
in 1-dB(A) increments. We compared characteristics of exposed U.S. Census block groups at three thresholds (
,
, and
), assigned on the basis of the block group land area being
within the threshold, vs. unexposed block groups near study airports. Comparisons were made across block group race/ethnicity, education, and income categories within the study areas (
). We performed both multinomial and other various multivariable regression approaches, including models controlling for airport and models with random intercepts specifying within-airport effects and adjusting for airport-level means.
Aggregated across multiple airports, block groups with a higher Hispanic population had higher odds of being exposed to aircraft noise. For example, the multinomial analysis showed that a 10-percentage point increase in a block group's Hispanic population was associated with an increased odds ratio of 39% (95% CI: 25%, 54%) of being exposed to
compared with block groups exposed to
. Block groups with higher proportions of residents with only a high school education had higher odds of being exposed to aircraft noise. Results were robust across multiple regression approaches; however, there was substantial heterogeneity across airports.
These results suggest that across U.S. airports, there is indication of sociodemographic disparities in noise exposures. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9307.
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Details
- Title
- Sociodemographic Patterns of Exposure to Civil Aircraft Noise in the United States
- Creators
- Matthew C Simon - Boston UniversityJaime E Hart - Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USAJonathan I Levy - Boston UniversityTrang VoPham - Brigham and Women's HospitalAndrew Malwitz - Volpe National Transportation Systems CenterDaniel Nguyen - Boston UniversityMatthew Bozigar - Boston UniversityL Adrienne Cupples - Boston UniversityPeter James - Harvard Pilgrim Health CareFrancine Laden - Brigham and Women's HospitalJunenette L Peters - Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Publication Details
- Environmental health perspectives, Vol.130(2), pp.27009-27009
- Academic Unit
- Aviation Sustainability Center (ASCENT); Noise
- Grants
- 13-C-AJFF-BU-016, Federal Aviation Administration (United States, Washington) - FAA
- Grant note
- T32 ES014562 / NIEHS NIH HHS R01 ES025791 / NIEHS NIH HHS R01 HL150119 / NHLBI NIH HHS P50 MD010428 / NIMHD NIH HHS
- Identifiers
- 99900898129901842
- Copyright
- Open Access: Under the Diamond Open Access model, all content published on the EHP website may be accessed and downloaded for free, with no restrictions. In addition, authors pay no fees for submission, processing, or color figures.
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article