Sleep disturbances from road traffic noise: A comparison between laboratory and field settings

The aim of this study was to investigate whether there were any differences in the effects of noise on sleep between studies performed in the laboratory and in field settings with equal road traffic noise exposure. Fourteen subjects, living along a street with a relatively high load of road traffic and with bedroom windows facing the street, slept four nights at home and four nights in a sleep laboratory, where they were exposed to played back “home road traffic noise”. Effects on sleep were evaluated by questionnaires and wrist-actigraphy. No significant differences in sleep quality were found between home and laboratory conditions on variables assessed either by questionnaires or wrist-actigraphy. It was concluded that laboratory experiments do not exaggerate the effects of road traffic noise on sleep, provided that sleep is studied with the same methods and that a homelike environment is created in the laboratory.