Dataset for Appendix 2 of Impact of Noise on the Welfare of Laboratory Animals

Dataset accompanying the report titled "Impact of Noise on the Welfare of Laboratory Animals". The aim of the report was to provide evidence-based recommendations for managing sound in laboratory animal facilities, funded by the Flemish Government, Department of Animal Welfare (specification number OMG_DWZ_2025_001). The data for this dataset was obtained through a systematic review to give an unbiased and representative picture of how different types of sounds impact reproduction, immune function, sleep, social behaviour (aggression), and anxiety/fear of laboratory rats, mice, pigs, chickens, and zebrafish.

The dataset was used to create tile plots showing the direction score (DS) for broadband noise, music, urban noise, and narrowband noise (each on separate sheets) per outcome and species. The direction score (DS) was calculated to quantify the evidence that sound was having a positive, negative, no effect, or other effect on target species. DS was calculated based on the number of data points, as (n_positive - n_negative) divided by sum of all effects (n_positive + n_negative + n_none + n_other). Thus, DS ranges from +1 (all studies positive) to -1 (all studies negative). Confidence in DS was classified as ‘low’ when fewer than three unique studies contributed, and as ‘OK’ when three or more unique studies contributed data points to the score.