14th ICBEN Congress on Noise as a Public Health Problem

The principal subject areas of the 14th ICBEN Congress are:
1. Noise-induced hearing loss
– Hearing loss, tinnitus, and balance problems associated with noise
– Occupational noise and hearing loss
– Leisure noise/ noise from portable music players and hearing loss
– Screening, clinical evaluation and treatment of noise-induced hearing loss
– Molecular genetics of noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus
2. Noise and communication
– Speech perception in noise
– Situational awareness in noise
– Effects of hearing protection on speech perception and situational awareness
– Auditory performance in noisy workplaces
– Speech privacy
– Speech understanding in the classroom
– Speech communication and speech intelligibility
– Speech communication with auditory impairment
– Perception and localization of warning sounds
– Communication aids
3. Non-auditory health effects of noise
– Effects of noise on long term health outcomes, morbidity and mortality
– Cardiovascular effects of noise
– Physiological and endocrinological effects of noise
– Mental health effects of noise
– Effects of noise on birth outcomes and early child development
– Hospital noise effects on staff performance and patient rehabilitation
4. Effects of noise on cognition, performance and behaviour
– Effects of noise on cognition, performance and behaviour with special focus on workplaces (e.g., schools, offices and hospitals), public places or dwellings
– Field and laboratory studies, behavioural and questionnaire studies on cognitive and behavioural noise effects
– Coping with noise and adaptive behaviour to noise
– Occupant satisfaction surveys for evaluation of building acoustics
– Methods to explore noise effects on behaviour
– Developing and evaluating methods to reduce the negative impact of noise on cognition, performance, behaviour and well-being (e.g., restorative sounds, sound masking, sound design of soundscapes)
– Basic research on how and why cognitive performance (e.g. attention, short-term memory, reasoning, writing, reading) is affected by certain background sounds and noise characteristics, respectively
5. Effects of noise on sleep
– Exposure-response relationships for noise-induced sleep disturbances
– Laboratory and field studies on the effects of noise on sleep
– Individual differences in reactions to noise during sleep
– Substantiation of night-time noise protection concepts
– Vibration effects on sleep and other health outcomes
– Methods and instrumentation for the study of noise effects on sleep
– Long term impacts of night-time noise exposure on health and wellbeing
6. Community response to noise and noise annoyance
– Community response to noise
– Noise annoyance and noise disturbance
– Effects of noise on health-related quality of life (HRQOL)
– Response to noise exposure changes
– Connection between community response to noise and noise policies
– Community response to noise and annoyance in developing countries
– Cross-cultural studies of noise annoyance
– Effects of vibration on annoyance
7. Low frequency noise and vibration
– Sources of infrasound, low frequency noise (LFN) and vibration
– Detection, measurement and analysis of LFN including wind turbine noise
– Propagation of infrasound and LFN in the atmosphere and in buildings
– Propagation of vibration in the ground and in structures
– Hand-arm vibration, whole-body vibration, vibroacoustic disease (VAD)
– Interaction of LFN and vibration
– Vibrations caused by noise
– Radiation of noise from vibrating surfaces
– Problems and solutions in the domain of LFN
– Control of LFN and vibration by passive and active methods
– Technical applications of LFN and vibration
– Regulations and guidelines on LFN and vibration
– Infrasound effects on humans
8. Combined effect of noise and other agents
– Interactions between noise and other physical, chemical and biological agents
9. Noise policy and economics
– Local, regional and global noise policies
– Passive and active noise abatement and its effects
– Environmental noise management
– Cost-benefit analysis of environmental noise management
– Sustainable urban development and environmental noise
– Economic impact of noise, external costs of noise
10. Other topics
– Effects of noise on animals
– Ultrasound
– Noise exposure assessment
– noise mapping

ICBEN is the International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise. Its goal is to promote a high level of scientific research concerning all the aspects of noise-induced effects on human beings and on animals including preventive regulatory measures and to keep alive a vivid communication among the scientists working in that field. ICBEN is a scientific organization that has no legal identity of its own and entirely depends on its members and its officers that voluntarily work for the organization. ICBEN is an affiliate member of the International Commission for Acoustics (ICA).