Being a Fair Neighbor-Towards a Psychometric Inventory to Assess Fairness-Related Perceptions of Airports by Residents-Development and Validation of the Aircraft Noise-Related Fairness Inventory (fAIR-In)

Dominik Hauptvogel; Dirk Schreckenberg; Tobias Rothmund; Marie-Therese Schmitz; Susanne Bartels

doi:10.3390/ijerph20126113

Being a Fair Neighbor-Towards a Psychometric Inventory to Assess Fairness-Related Perceptions of Airports by Residents-Development and Validation of the Aircraft Noise-Related Fairness Inventory (fAIR-In)

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jun 13;20(12):6113. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20126113.

Authors

Dominik Hauptvogel¹, Dirk Schreckenberg², Tobias Rothmund³, Marie-Therese Schmitz⁴, Susanne Bartels¹

Affiliations

¹ German Aerospace Center, Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Sleep and Human Factors Research, Linder Höhe, 51147 Cologne, Germany.
² ZEUS GmbH, Zentrum für Angewandte Psychologie, Umwelt- und Sozialforschung, Sennbrink 46, 58093 Hagen, Germany.
³ Institute for Communication Science, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8, 07743 Jena, Germany.
⁴ Working Group Biostatistics, Institute of Medical Biometry, Informatics, Epidemiology (IMBIE), University of Bonn, Venusberg-Campus 1, 53127 Bonn, Germany.

Abstract

Aircraft noise causes a variety of negative health consequences, and annoyance is a central factor mediating stress-related health risks. Non-acoustic factors play an important role in the experience of annoyance where the aspect of fairness is assumed to be a vital component. This paper describes the development of the Aircraft Noise-related Fairness Inventory (fAIR-In) and examines its factorial validity, construct validity and predictive validity. The development of the questionnaire included expert consultations, statements from airport residents and a large-scale online survey around three German airports (N = 1367). Its items cover distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal fairness. Via mailshot, almost 100,000 flyers were sent out in more (>55 dB(A) L_den)- and less (≤55 dB(A) L_den)-aircraft-noise-exposed areas around Cologne-Bonn, Dusseldorf and Dortmund Airport. Thirty-two items were carefully selected considering reliability, theoretical importance and factor loading calculated via exploratory factor analysis (EFA), with all facets achieving high internal consistency (α = 0.89 to 0.92). The factorial validity, analyzed via a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), revealed that viewing distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal fairness as distinct factors produced a better fit to the data than other categorizations with fewer factors. The fAIR-In shows adequate results in terms of construct validity and excellent results in terms of the predictive validity of annoyance by aircraft noise (r = -0.53 to r = -0.68), acceptance of airports and air traffic (r = 0.46 to r = 0.59) and willingness to protest (r = -0.28 to r = -0.46). The fAIR-In provides airport managers with a reliable, valid and easy-to-use tool to design, monitor and evaluate efforts to improve the neighborliness between an airport and its residents.

Keywords: CFA; aircraft; annoyance; distributive; fairness; informational; interactional; inventory; justice; noise; procedural; psychometric; reliability; scale; validity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Aircraft
Airports
Environmental Exposure
Noise, Transportation*
Psychometrics
Reproducibility of Results

Grants and funding

This work was achieved via ANIMA, a research project that received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 769627.