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Noise has greatest impact on lower earners
CIEH report finds that nearly a quarter of people are regularly disturbed by noise, while lower-income households are significantly more likely to be affected
Report reinforces need to treat noise “not just as a nuisance” but as an environmental and public health issue that needs a more empirical response
CIEH research has found that lower earners are disproportionally disturbed by noise and has called for ‘urgent action’ to close health inequality gaps in England and Wales.
A new report, Sound Thinking, combines analysis of local authority noise-complaint data with Ipsos polling of more than 2,100 adults aged 16-75 in England and Wales. The results reveal that nearly a quarter of people say they are disturbed by noise regularly, while many believe the problem is getting worse.
One of the key findings from the polling is that lower-income households are significantly more likely to be affected. The research found that 29% of respondents with household incomes of under £20,000 reported being disturbed frequently by noise, compared with 19% of those earning more than £55,000.
Among the report’s recommendations are calls for nationally consistent coding categories for noise complaints; a mechanism for councils to record and monitor emerging sources of noise as they develop; and guidance for councils undergoing Local Government Reorganisation to ensure consistent reporting systems.
“Better data, as well as technical expertise and properly resourced environmental health services are essential for the effective management of noise…”
Paul Shields, President of the Institute of Acoustics (IoA), said: “The IoA welcomes CIEH’s call for a more consistent approach, recognising that better data, as well as technical expertise and properly resourced environmental health services are essential for the effective management of noise and protecting public health and wellbeing from what has been recognised to be a neglected pollutant.”
Ellie Savage, Noise Action Week Coordinator and Policy Lead at the Institution of Environmental Sciences, said: “As Sound Thinking makes clear, we have a fragmented and incomplete picture of noise complaints across local authorities, limiting our ability to understand trends, identify emerging sources and make the case for the resources needed to tackle noise effectively.
“Most importantly, the report reinforces the need for treating noise not simply as a nuisance, but as an environmental and public health issue that needs a more strategic, evidence-based response.”
The importance of strengthening the evidence linking people's reported experiences of noise to their actual exposure was also stressed by Dr Calvin Jephcote, Lecturer in Exposure Science at the University of Leicester.
He said: “CIEH is right to frame noise as a health inequalities issue. The recommendations, particularly around consistent complaint coding and improved digital reporting, are practical and overdue. A genuinely national understanding of noise nuisance is currently very difficult to achieve without this kind of standardisation.
“Unlike air pollution, noise exposure is highly localised and shaped by both proximity to sources and characteristics of the built environment. While socioeconomic disadvantage is often associated with greater exposure to environmental noise, the relationship is complex.”
Dr Jephcote also highlighted the ‘triple-jeopardy hypothesis’, which suggests that socioeconomically disadvantaged communities often experience higher exposure to environmental hazards, greater susceptibility to poor health due to social and psychosocial factors, and consequently a disproportionate burden of adverse health outcomes.
Stephen Turner, noise specialist and CIEH Vice President, said: “Monitoring noise complaints alone provides an incomplete picture about the adverse effects of noise, as we know some people choose not to complain even if they are highly annoyed, while the opposite can also be true.
“One of the next challenges for CIEH is to explore how complaint recording could be standardised and then reported more efficiently, covering both existing and emerging sources of noise.”
