Health effects of low frequency noise and infrasound from wind farms: results from an independent collective expertise in France

Several complaints were expressed by some residents of French wind farms, putting forward infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN) as a potential source of annoyance. Since available information on this subject are multiple and often contradictory, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) was mandated by the French Ministry of Environment to conduct an independent collective expertise on the evaluation of the health effects related to ILFN from wind farms. The objective was first to produce a complete review on auditory and non auditory health effects due to WTN, focusing on ILFN ; then, to collect experimental ILFN data from some wind farms in order to compare with data from the literature ; and finally to propose some improvements in the process of wind farm assessment or of impact studies, concerning ILFN. This paper presents the main results and conclusions of this expertise.

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