Awareness and attitudes to noise and its hazards in motor parks in a sub-urban Nigerian town

The study assessed awareness and attitudes of people working in the environment (users) of the motor parks (but not travelers), in a sub-urban town to environmental noise and its hazards. Regular users of major motor parks in Sagamu were administered with pretested structured questionnaire to obtain information on their awareness and attitudes concerning noise and NIHL at the parks. Descriptive and comparative analysis of the data obtained was performed by using SPSS version 15.0. Data from 387 subjects were analysed; 61.2% were males, mean age was 35.5 11.4 years, 56.8% had secondary school education, and 50.6% were vehicle drivers or conductors. 51.2% ascribed vehicular traffic the major source of noise generation at the parks, while average noise level was 84.1 ± 6.0 dBA. Among the subjects, 61.2% approved motor park was noisy, 47.8% (185/387) were aware of NIHL. Awareness did not change with age and sex, but increased significantly with level of education. 51.9% were concerned about the noisy environment, 12.7% (49/387) protected themselves from the effect of the noise, 6.1% used ear plugs. Attitudes of the users did not change with age, sex, and level of education. Noise level at the motor parks were marginally high, awareness of the users to noise and its hazards was relatively high but attitudes concerning protection from noise hazards was poor. Health education for the users and noise regulation at the parks were recommended.