Literature review finds no unique health risks from wind turbine infrasound, suggesting reported annoyance is primarily driven by individual characteristics rather than sound levels.
OBJECTIVE: This review examines the literature related to health effects of wind turbines. METHODS: We reviewed literature related to sound measurements near turbines, epidemiological and experimental studies, and factors associated with annoyance. RESULTS: (1) Infrasound sound near wind turbines does not exceed audibility thresholds. (2) Epidemiological studies have shown associations between living near wind turbines and annoyance. (3) Infrasound and low-frequency sound do not present unique health risks. (4) Annoyance seems more strongly related to individual characteristics than noise from turbines. DISCUSSION: Further areas of inquiry include enhanced noise characterization, analysis of predicted noise values contrasted with measured levels postinstallation, longitudinal assessments of health pre- and postinstallation, experimental studies in which subjects are "blinded" to the presence or absence of infrasound, and enhanced measurement techniques to evaluate annoyance.
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McCunney et al. (2014) studied this question.
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