Title
Neurobehavioral effects of transportation noise in primary schoolchildren A cross-sectional study
Author
TNO Kwaliteit van Leven
van Kempen, E.
van Kamp, I.
Lebret, E.
Lammers, J.
Emmen, H.
Stansfeld, S.
Publication year
2010
Abstract
Background. Due to shortcomings in the design, no source-specific exposure-effect relations are as yet available describing the effects of noise on children's cognitive performance. This paper reports on a study investigating the effects of aircraft and road traffic noise exposure on the cognitive performance of primary schoolchildren in both the home and the school setting. Methods. Participants were 553 children (age 9-11 years) attending 24 primary schools around Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. Cognitive performance was measured by the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System (NES), and a set of paper-and-pencil tests. Multilevel regression analyses were applied to estimate the association between noise exposure and cognitive performance, accounting for demographic and school related confounders. Results. Effects of school noise exposure were observed in the more difficult parts of the Switching Attention Test (SAT): children attending schools with higher road or aircraft noise levels made significantly more errors. The correlational pattern and factor structure of the data indicate that the coherence between the neurobehavioral tests and paper-and-pencil tests is high. Conclusions. Based on this study and previous scientific literature it can be concluded that performance on simple tasks is less susceptible to the effects of noise than performance on more complex tasks. © 2010 van Kempen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
Subject
air transportation
behavioral response
child health
cognition
health impact
neurology
noise pollution
pollution exposure
regression analysis
road transport
aircraft
attention
child
demography
major clinical study
multilevel analysis
primary school
priority journal
regression analysis
school child
task performance
traffic noise
environmental exposure
neuropsychological test
reaction time
traffic noise
Amsterdam [North Holland]
Netherlands
North Holland
Attention
Child
Cognition
Cross-Sectional Studies
Environmental Exposure
Female
Humans
Male
Neuropsychological Tests
Noise, Transportation
Reaction Time
Regression Analysis
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:3afeb830-fddd-4836-84c3-b6cbf2f99ee8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-069x-9-25
TNO identifier
954176
ISSN
1476-069X
Source
Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source, 9 (9)
Document type
article