Assessment of annoyance from traffic noise in a school and a hospital

Traffic noise can cause significant annoyance. We administered noise annoyance surveys in two Florida facilities located near a highway and a busy road while traffic noise levels were being measured. In Trilogy school, thirty middle & high school students rated the annoyance caused by traffic noise inside the school to be an average of 1.9 (SD 2.0) on a scale from 0 to 10. Traffic noise was just as disturbing as other sounds inside the school. However, the fraction of students reporting any level of traffic noise disturbance was significantly higher outdoors (80%) than indoors (48%). Additionally, traffic noise caused some difficulty hearing the teacher for 9.7% of students. In Shands Hospital, the average ratings of annoyance from traffic noise given by 107 staff (M=1.1, SD=2.0) and 104 patients (M=1.2, SD=1.4) were not higher in areas of the hospital that were closer to the road or the helicopter landing pad compared to the other areas of the hospital. Traffic noise was substantially less disturbing than other noise inside the hospital, e.g., tube station. However, traffic noise caused moderate to extreme annoyance for 12.4% of patients and some degree of sleep disruption for 27.9% of patients.