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ABSTRACTWe conducted a comprehensive urban sound and community noise perception assessment, using the lens of illegal firework activity during the unique social climate of 2020 as its motivation. Using data gathered from stationary monitoring sites, our research app NoiseScore, emergency (911) and non-emergency (311) phone call reports, and data from the United States Census we observed significant neighborhood differences in sound levels associated with firework activity. We observed that firework activity was dominated by low-frequency sound across all neighborhoods. This trend persisted by time of day and day of week. Further, it was low-frequency sound ranges (and alternative weighting systems like C-weighting and Z-weighting that penalized lower frequency sound levels less) that had the highest correlations with 911 and 311 firework calls. Keywords qualitatively examined from 311 data like ‘bomb’, ‘explosion’, ‘PTSD’ and ‘war zone’ highlight that many residents associate the detonation of fireworks to danger, and view fireworks as an environmental psychological trigger that for many residents – particularly veterans, those living in neighborhoods impacted by gun violence, or victims of gun violence – is quite traumatic. Comparing our findings to existing epidemiological studies suggest that incessant firework activity puts residents at risk for negative cardiovascular and mental health outcomes.

ABSTRACTThis article assesses the acoustical impacts to the environment in an urban neighborhood when a sports stadium is repurposed for live concerts. Various sound metrics were recorded with acoustic octave band analyzers on residential rooftops in one week intervals across multiple sites in the Fenway neighborhood within Boston, Massachusetts during a range of Fenway Park activities from March to September 2019. Analyses of sound level predictors were conducted to quantify the relative impact of different Fenway activities. Live concerts are significantly (p < 0.05) louder than other stadium activities across almost all sound metrics when adjusting for other relevant sources of sound, on average adding 4 dBA to the acoustical environment and with larger contributions at closer proximity to the stadium. Adaptive reuse of a baseball stadium to include live concerts led to a significant increase in noise levels in the surrounding community, which may impact the mental and physical health of neighborhood residents. These impacts may be more severe on the neighborhood’s most vulnerable residents. Our study reinforces the importance of monitoring multiple sound level metrics at numerous locations, with statistical methods to disentangle source contributions, in order to best capture the impact of changing use patterns on community noise exposures.