CHANSE Call Partner Search Tool

General Information

• Project title: Urban density, neighbour noise and well being.
• Type: Project looking for partner
• Organisation: London School of Economics
• Country: United Kingdom (UK)

Research area

• Call theme: Enhancing well-being for the future
• Keywords:

  urban; noise; stress; well being; health;

• Brief description of your expertise / expertise you are looking for:

  I have a series of papers exploring the well-being (as measured across several dimensions of \'happiness\') and health effects of neighbour noise. This is noise from load parties, music, foot fall, moving furniture, yelling and fighting etc.. The noise created by neighbours has a social dimension that is associated with stress and is robustly correlated with lower measures of well being and worse health. The mechanisms through which neighbour noise impact well-being and health (primarily chronic social stress) are distinct from the impact of ex-ante observable road/air plane environmental noise, which is much more researched.

• Brief description of your project / the project you would like to join:

  To date all of my research on the effects of neighbour noise on well being and health has relied on household survey data. These observational studies yield results that are strikingly robust across different datasets and extensive sets of socioeconomic, psychometric, physiological, and housing quality controls. Thus at this point the observational evidence is strong enough to warrant further research using more robust experimental or quasi-experimental methods. The project I am proposing would bring together expertise to design an experimental approach, or take advantage of a quasi-experimental ("natural experiment") approach, to find causally more robust evidence of the well being effects of neighbour noise, quantify the impacts, and provide a stronger evidence base for public policy action in increasingly dense urban landscapes.

Diana Weinhold

• Organisation: London School of Economics
• Position: Assoc. Prof.
• E-mail: d.weinhold@lse.ac.uk
• Web: personal.lse.ac.uk/weinhold/