HI all

I've been asked to look into how office noise can affect wokers. I'm talking about annoyances/stress etc rather than NIHL etc

does anyone know of any recent studies/articles regarding this?

Ta

Many thanks for that

Mike, I used to work for the Police in Bristol in the communications centre, so we had lots of noise from what became later known as a call centre.  We established through interviewing each member of staff how the task noise affected them and liased with Occupational Health if they had any suggestions.  The job was 3 shifts covering a 24 hour period, so different lighting requirements and noise levels.  We installed large uplights for late and night shifts and the overhead lighting was switched off.  Each operator had a swivel angle poise light so they could see their written notes if they wanted.  We installed louvred window screens to absorb both light and noise.  Carpet tiles throughout.  Work areas had noise baffle screens that were positioned all around zones of 5 or 6 people.  For certain events we installed a command room, where it had a glass screen (so we could see the other staff) but the local comms noise and command instructions were not heard by the rest of the comms centre.  It got heated at times with Bomb threats, ram raids, burglaries in progress, car chases, helicopter pursuits or simply traffic chaos incidents.  Having the noise cancelling and light balancing made the job both less stressful and easier to concentrate on the job at hand.    

There are some EU studies that look at the relationship between CVD and noise, mainly aircracft noise, there is also a study on the 'mindful states' of noise based on psychological and nuerobiological studies....happy sounds and sad sounds etc....there is a peer reviewed model....there are others I will have a look through my papers over coffee and post...

Thank you everyone for your replies. some intersting stuff there for me to look into

Cheers