Assessment of Health...

The fast pace of urbanization has led to an increased spring-up of residential buildings around many airports, especially in developing countries. Amongst all these enormous impacts posed by airports on their host communities, this research focused on assessing the health-related challenges suffered by the host communities due to airport noise. The Port Harcourt International Airport, Margaret Ekpo International Airport and Benin Airport and their nearby communities (5) were selected for the study. With three hundred and seventy-two (372) respondents, a questionnaire was used to gather information regarding health-related impacts. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics such as mean value, frequency count and percentage. The finding revealed that aircraft noise causes difficulty in sleeping and restlessness in the surrounding communities (45.7%), hearing impairment in people (47.0%), affecting community people mentally and physical (54.6%); however, community people don’t find it difficult to sleep during the day (47.0%) and communicate (45.2%). The outcome revealed that aircraft noise is causing many people in the community panic-attack that can cause high blood pressure (42.0%). It was concluded that the generated noise pollution from aircraft activities such as landing and taking-off expose communities to extremely dangerous noise level status and have significant impact on the wellbeing of the people living nearby the selected airports. Communities should be restricted to 10km radius distance away from the airport area.