Advancing Methods to Better Measure Public Response to Supersonic Aircraft Noise

Dose-response curve estimation, such as when measuring the relationship between the noise exposure level of a supersonic flight and the probability that an exposed person is highly annoyed by the flight event, is subject to bias when the dose is measured with error. A new paper published in Statistical Methods and Applications proposes an approach to mitigate this bias. The paper is coauthored by Andreea Erciulescu, PhD, a Westat Associate Vice President in the Statistics and Data Science Center.

This new study examines how small uncertainty in noise measurements can affect estimates of public annoyance, finding that even modest measurement errors can noticeably influence results. Using data from NASA’s 2018 supersonic flight field test in Galveston, Texas, the study team developed advanced statistical methods that account for the noise measurement uncertainty, potentially leading to more accurate assessments of community response. The findings will help inform future supersonic flight studies and support the development of allowable noise standards.

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Accounting for Dose Uncertainty in Dose-Response Curve Estimation Using Hierarchical Bayes Models

Andreea L. Erciulescu, Irene Molina Manrique, and Jean D. Opsomer