It is necessary to assess differences in the community response to noise among
countries for the effective implementation of noise policies. However, very little
noise annoyance data have been accumulated in countries outside Europe and
North America. Toward the establishment of a noise policy in Vietnam and to
meet global interest in noise problems in Asia, socio-acoustic surveys on the
community response to transportation noise have been carried out in Vietnam
since 2005. A total of around 9,900 responses were obtained from these surveys.
In this paper, a method of drawing exposure–response curves for noise annoyance
in Vietnam is presented. Representative exposure–response relationships
are proposed for road traffic and aircraft noise annoyance in Vietnam and compared
with those of Europe and Korea. The results show that the aircraft noise
annoyance curve for Vietnam was slightly higher than the curve obtained by the
EU but considerably lower than that for Korea. Vietnamese respondents were
less annoyed by road traffic noise than respondents in Europe and Korea. The
frequency of use and the attitude to the benefits to society of motorbikes and airplanes
were found to moderate noise annoyance in Vietnamese cities. This study
also shows a method to quantify the difference in the prevalence of annoyance
measured by five-point verbal and 11-point numerical scales.