The National Health and Medical Research Council has today opened a Targeted Call for Research (TCR) into Wind Farms and Human Health.
The TCR will support research that addresses one or both of the following issues:
- The relationship between wind farm noise and health effects.
- The broader social and environmental circumstances that influence annoyance, sleep disturbance, quality of life and health effects that are reported by residents living in proximity to wind farms.
The call for research follows the recent release of the NHMRC Statement: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health and accompanying Information Paper, which were based on the findings of an independent review of over 4000 papers.
The Information Paper concluded that the body of direct evidence was small and of poor quality: “Internationally, there is little research evidence regarding the health effects of wind farms. Over 4000 papers were identified in the reviews and, of these papers, only 13 studies were found that considered possible relationships between wind farm emissions and health outcomes. Only one of these studies was conducted in Australia.”
The expert group which oversaw this work, the Wind Farms and Human Health Reference Group, identified areas for further research based on evidence gaps identified in the review.
Mothers Against Wind Turbines Inc. 