the association between road traffic noise exposure and annoyance

Introduction: exposure to road - traffic noise commonly engenders annoyance, the extent of which is determined by factors not fully understood. our aim was to estimate the prevalence and determinants of road - traffic noise annoyance in taxi drivers in qazvin.material and methods: this study was performed on 98 drivers of a selected route in qazvin (all married). equivalent noise levels [leq (db a)] were measured during day and evening in all streets of the route. according to iso 9612: 2009, 8 h equivalent noise level [leq8h (db a)] were measured. noise annoyance was estimated using self - reported annoyance scale.results: noise annoyance showed strong correlation with noise levels and personal characteristics. the strongest correlation was found between the percentage of highly annoyed drivers and evening noise level (or = 2.4). logistic regression model identified increased risk for a high level of noise annoyance with regard to: age (or = 0.95), smoking habit (or = 1.9), educational status (or = 0.026) and driving experience (or = 2.1).conclusions: a considerable proportion of taxi drivers are highly annoyed by road - traffic noise, and perceive it to be a significant health risk.xa0; knowledge of health risks of road - traffic noise, are associated with noise annoyance. there is necessity to establish an acceptable level of exposure noise for taxi drivers.