Oiamo Tor H, Luginaah Isaac N, Baxter Jamie
Department of Geography, The University of Western Ontario, London ON, Canada.
Department of Geography, The University of Western Ontario, London ON, Canada.
Soc Sci Med. 2015 Dec;146:191-203. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.10.043. Epub 2015 Oct 21.
Noise and odour annoyances are important considerations in research on health effects of air pollution and traffic noise. Cumulative exposures can occur via several chemical hazards or a combination of chemical and stressor-based hazards, and related health outcomes can be generalized as manifestations of physiological and/or psychological stress responses. A major research challenge in this field is to understand the combined health effects of physiological and psychological responses to exposure. The SF-12 Health Survey is a health related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument designed for the assessment of functional mental and physical health in clinical practice and therefore well suited to research on physiological health outcomes of exposure. However, previous research has not assessed its sensitivity to psychological stress as measured by noise annoyance and odour annoyance. The current study validated and tested this application of the SF-12 Health Survey in a cross-sectional study (n = 603) that included exposure assessment for traffic noise and air pollution in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The results indicated that SF-12 scores in Windsor were lower than Canadian normative data. A structural equation model demonstrated that this was partially due to noise and odour annoyances, which were associated with covarying exposures to ambient nitrogen dioxide and traffic noise. More specifically, noise annoyance had a significant and negative effect on both mental and physical health factors of the SF-12 and there was a significant covariance between noise annoyance and odour annoyance. The study confirmed a significant effect of psychological responses to cumulative exposures on HRQoL. The SF-12 Health Survey shows promise with respect to assessing the cumulative health effects of outdoor air pollution and traffic noise.
噪音和气味烦恼是空气污染和交通噪音对健康影响研究中的重要考量因素。累积暴露可通过多种化学危害或化学与应激源相关危害的组合发生，相关的健康结果可概括为生理和/或心理应激反应的表现。该领域的一项主要研究挑战是了解暴露对生理和心理反应的综合健康影响。SF - 12健康调查是一种与健康相关的生活质量（HRQoL）工具，旨在评估临床实践中的功能性心理和身体健康，因此非常适合用于研究暴露对生理健康的影响。然而，以往的研究尚未评估其对噪音烦恼和气味烦恼所衡量的心理应激的敏感性。本研究在一项横断面研究（n = 603）中对SF - 12健康调查的这种应用进行了验证和测试，该研究包括对加拿大安大略省温莎市的交通噪音和空气污染进行暴露评估。结果表明，温莎市的SF - 12得分低于加拿大的标准数据。结构方程模型表明，这部分是由于噪音和气味烦恼，它们与环境二氧化氮和交通噪音的共同暴露有关。更具体地说，噪音烦恼对SF - 12的心理和身体健康因素均有显著的负面影响，且噪音烦恼与气味烦恼之间存在显著的协方差。该研究证实了累积暴露的心理反应对HRQoL有显著影响。SF - 12健康调查在评估室外空气污染和交通噪音的累积健康影响方面显示出前景。
