Standardized general-purpose noise reaction questions for community noise surveys: Research and a recommendation

Differences in survey questions' wordings and weakness in some questions us ed to measure noise annoyance have interfered with accumulating knowledge a bout the factors that affect different communities' responses to noise. In 1993 an ICBEN team, Community Response to Noise, set the goal of creating h igh-quality survey questions that would yield internationally comparable me asures of overall reactions to noise sources. After 7 years of discussions and research the team has developed and tested a method that attempts to me et those goals. The team recommends the use of a pair of multi-purpose ques tions in community noise surveys. The wording of the questions is presented for the nine languages for which a standardized empirical study protocol h as been followed to select annoyance scale words. The team's protocol can b e used to create comparable questions for additional languages in the futur e. (C) 2001 Academic Press.