Sleep effects of aircraft noise near Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport: results from the pilot study of the DEBATS research program

摘要

DEBATS is an on-going research program aiming to characterize the relations between the aircraft noise exposure and the health status of French residents around three airports. In particular, this program includes a sleep study whose goal is to characterize specifically acute effects of aircraft noise on sleep quality using accurate noise exposure measurements. A pilot study was performed in 2011 in order to test and validate the protocol. Twelve individuals wore a wrist actiwatch for seven nights and completed a sleep diary in order to evaluate their sleep quality. An actiwatch allows detection of wrist movements and is useful for discriminating sleep from wake activity. It has been validated in the assessment of sleep indicators. Simultaneously, a sonometer located in the participants' bedroom recorded their noise exposure during these nights. A second sonometer set up outside (at the bedroom facade) allowed us to identify the aircraft noise and to evaluate the impact of this noise in the participants' bedroom. Thus, energetic as well as noise event indicators have been estimated and a link between these indicators and sleep quality has been investigated. The results of this pilot study are presented and discussed.