The perception of aircraft noise and its impact among children

Kurzfassung

Although children are considered vulnerable to the effects of noise, research seldom addresses their subjective experience directly, with parental evaluations often used as proxies. In a field study at Cologne/Bonn Airport, we explored the perception of aircraft noise and its chronic impacts among 51 children aged 8 to 10 years. Separate interviews were conducted with both children and their parents. The children provided self-reports, while parents assessed the noise-related effects on themselves as well as on their children. The interviews focused on chronic annoyance and disturbance of daily activities, including sleep disruption attributed to aircraft noise, as well as factors thought to influence noise perception, such as noise sensitivity. When comparing self-reports, children generally described themselves as less annoyed by aircraft noise and less sensitive to noise overall compared to parental assessments. According to children’s reports, the activities most frequently disturbed were indoor passive communication, the ability to fall asleep, and concentrating indoors. Discrepancies between children’s self-reports and parental assessments were particularly evident regarding sleep disturbances; parents tended to underestimate children’s difficulty to fall asleep due to noise. These findings emphasize the importance of recording children’s experience in noise effect studies rather than relying solely on parental assessments.