[The determination of the maximum permissible noise level for areas and zones incorporating facilities requiring enhanced noise protection].

Abstract

Noise, a stressogenic factor adversely affecting the body, is subject to monitoring and control, notably, at sites where health considerations impose a more rigorous acoustic regimen. Where systematic and ubiquitous excesses over admissible noise level occur in an urban environment, a special case of health impact is that produced upon an inpatient's course of recovery from illness. This paper presents evidence from a survey of mean excesses over HEI-regulated noise standards for zones enclosing 16 Sofia inpatient facilities. The procedure used to determine and map mean excesses in cities has been made available to the preventive network of local HEIs countrywide; however, it still has not been put into practice everywhere. This renewed presentation, it is hoped, should contribute to recognizing its necessity and making use of the technique. The most frequently encountered excesses over the admissible noise level were within the range 15-20 dB A. For districts incorporating hospital institutions, this acoustic situation may be qualified as not only inadequate to requirements but also as generating a health risk for vulnerable population groups. Clearly, the noise regimen observed in the surveyed zones in an environmental physical hazard hindering the process of recovery from illness--with all health, social, and economic negative effects entailed.