Data_Sheet_1_Perceptions of Wind Turbine Noise and Self-Reported Health in Suburban Residential Areas.docx

Wind turbines play an important role in the worldwide mission of producing renewable energy. The development toward integrating large-scale wind turbines in the urban environment has raised concerns over the noise impacts on urban residents. While most of the existing studies on wind turbine noise (WTN) have focused on rural settings, this paper investigates the relationship between WTN, noise perception and self-reported health of people, and controlling for background characteristics of the residents in urbanized areas. Questionnaire surveys were carried out around three suburban wind farms in the UK with 359 respondents. A-weighted sound pressure levels of WTN were predicted using noise mapping, for the most exposed façade of each dwelling of the respondent. The dose-response relationship was found between WTN and annoyance, moderated by age and degree of education. WTN was associated with some aspects of self-reported health, including raised health concerns, having headaches, nausea, and ear discomfort, but was not related to sleep disturbance directly. Noise sensitivity, attitudes to wind energy, and visibility of the wind turbines were found to significantly influence self-reported health. By employing a second variant of the questionnaire with the research aim masked, this study also addressed the focusing effects induced by the questionnaire design. The significant differences in the reported adverse health between questionnaire variants implied focusing bias among the sample who knew the research purpose. This elicited a methodological finding that should be noted in future research.

风力涡轮机在全球可再生能源生产事业中发挥着关键作用。将大型风力涡轮机融入城市环境的发展趋势，引发了学界与民众对其噪声影响城市居民的广泛担忧。尽管现有绝大多数关于风力涡轮机噪声（Wind Turbine Noise, WTN）的研究均聚焦于乡村场景，本研究仍探讨了WTN、噪声感知与民众自我报告健康状况之间的关联，并对城市化区域居民的背景特征进行了控制。研究团队针对英国三座郊区风力发电厂开展了问卷调查，共纳入359名受访者。针对每位受访者住宅受噪声影响最显著的立面，研究人员通过噪声映射法预测了WTN的A计权声压级。研究发现，WTN与噪声烦恼感之间存在剂量-反应关系，且该关系受年龄与受教育程度的调节。WTN与自我报告健康状况的若干维度存在关联，包括健康担忧程度升高、头痛、恶心及耳部不适，但并未直接与睡眠障碍相关。噪声敏感性、对风能的态度以及风力涡轮机的可见度，均对自我报告的健康状况产生了显著影响。本研究还设置了隐藏研究目的的第二版问卷，以此探讨问卷设计所引发的聚焦效应。不同问卷版本下报告的不良健康状况存在显著差异，这表明知晓研究目的的样本群体存在聚焦偏差。该结果得出了一项值得未来研究重视的方法论结论。