Objective and perceived acoustic environments during the COVID-19 lockdown: An overview of evidence

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic took a heavy toll on population health directly, but also triggered profound changes to social life, daily mobility patterns, and activity spaces. At the beginning, public health measures for limiting the spread of the virus mandated home confinement and limited outdoor activities, which in turn reshaped typical acoustic environments for many people. Traffic noise levels reportedly declined across various settings, allowing for nature sounds, hitherto masked, to become more prominent. On the other hand, prolonged home confinement made indoor sounds, such as mechanical sounds, human voices, and noise generated by neighbors, even more relevant for the well-being of building occupants. This overview will provide a synopsis of the evidence of changes to residential noise exposure and perceived soundscape quality and components across different contexts, with implications for residents' well-being. The observed changes will be discussed through the lens of stress and restoration theories.

Noise Perception and Health Effects on Population: A Cross-Sectional Study on COVID-19 Lockdown by Noise Sources for Spanish Dwellings

“…Another reason could be poor acoustic insulation and more time spent in homes performing various activities simultaneously. In the sample, there was a large number of teleworkers, which could have influenced and even biased the answers specifically in this health condition since several studies showed that noise affected the ability to telework [37,47,51,75].…”

In-situ noise attenuation effect of urban vegetation landscaping in typical residential communities along the elevated Metro overpass

“…Empirical research conducted across diverse contexts has explored various measures and technical approaches aimed at reducing residential noise exposure levels. Dzhambov (2022) has documented a reduction in residential noise exposure levels ranging from 4 to 10 dB. Several recent studies have focused on investigating the environmental noise levels generated by various sources and their impact on the surrounding communities, including the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) (Lee et al, 2023), the aircraft (Oh & Lee, 2020) and the railway (Yokoshima et al, 2021), among others.…”