Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, P.O.Box 95, FI-70100, Kuopio, Finland.
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, P.O.Box 95, FI-70100, Kuopio, Finland.
Environ Res. 2021 Jan;192:110360. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110360. Epub 2020 Oct 22.
In many countries, a certain proportion of individuals living in the vicinity of wind power areas have reported symptoms that they have intuitively associated with infrasound from wind turbines. While the reason for these symptoms remains under debate, this is the first study to describe the phenomenon by assessing the prevalence and severity of these wind turbine infrasound related symptoms as well as factors associated with being symptomatic. Four wind power areas in Finland assessed to have the most problems intuitively associated with wind turbine infrasound were selected for the study. The questionnaire was mailed to 4847 adults in four distance zones (≤ 2.5 km, > 2.5-5 km, > 5-10 km, > 10-20 km from the closest wind turbine), and 28% responded. In the closest distance zone, 15% of respondents reported having symptoms that they have intuitively associated with wind turbine infrasound. In the whole study area, the symptom prevalence was 5%. Many of the symptomatic respondents were annoyed by audible wind turbine sound and associated their symptoms also with vibration or electromagnetic field from wind turbines. One third of the symptomatic respondents rated their symptoms severe, and the symptom spectrum was very broad covering several organ systems. In multivariate models, many factors such as proximity to wind turbines, impaired health status, being annoyed by different aspects of wind turbines and considering wind turbines as a health risk were associated with having wind turbine infrasound related symptoms. Although causal relationships cannot be assessed based on a cross-sectional questionnaire study, it can be speculated that interpretations of symptoms are affected by many other factors in addition to actual exposure.
在许多国家，居住在风力发电场附近的一定比例的个体报告了他们直观地与风力涡轮机次声相关的症状。虽然这些症状的原因仍存在争议，但这是第一项通过评估与风力涡轮机次声相关的这些症状的患病率和严重程度以及与症状相关的因素来描述这一现象的研究。选择了芬兰四个被认为最直观地与风力涡轮机次声有关的问题的风力发电场进行这项研究。调查问卷邮寄给了四个距离区（≤2.5 公里、>2.5-5 公里、>5-10 公里、>10-20 公里）的 4847 名成年人，有 28%的人做出了回应。在最近的距离区，15%的受访者报告说有他们直观地与风力涡轮机次声有关的症状。在整个研究区域，症状的患病率为 5%。许多有症状的受访者被可听见的风力涡轮机声音所困扰，并将他们的症状也与风力涡轮机的振动或电磁场联系起来。三分之一有症状的受访者认为他们的症状严重，症状谱非常广泛，涵盖了几个器官系统。在多变量模型中，许多因素，如靠近风力涡轮机、健康状况受损、被风力涡轮机的不同方面所困扰以及将风力涡轮机视为健康风险，都与存在与风力涡轮机次声相关的症状有关。尽管基于横断面问卷调查研究不能评估因果关系，但可以推测，除了实际暴露之外，对症状的解释还受到许多其他因素的影响。
