Are Children More Exposed to Radio Frequency Energy From Mobile Phones Than Adults?

Abstract

There has been long-standing controversy, both among scientists and in the public, about whether children absorb more radio frequency (RF) energy in their heads than adults when using a mobile telephone. This review summarizes the current understanding of this issue, and some of the complexities in comparing the absorption of RF energy in different individuals from use of mobile phones. The discussion is limited to dosimetric issues, i.e., possible age-related differences in absorption of RF energy in the heads of mobile phone users. For most metrics of exposure, in particular those relevant to assessing the compliance of handsets with regulatory limits, there is no clear evidence for age-related differences in exposure. For two metrics of exposure, there is a clear evidence that age can play a factor: 1) the local specific absorption rate (SAR), in particular anatomically defined locations within the brain, will vary with head size and hence with age and 2) the SAR, in particular tissues, (e.g., bone marrow in the skull) can vary with age due to age-related differences in the dielectric properties of tissue. However, these differences involve SAR levels that are below the 1-g or 10-g peak spatial SAR (psSAR averaged over 1 or 10 g of tissue) and have no significance for compliance assessment. Age-related differences observed in worst case simulations such as presently considered are difficult to generalize to human populations under real-world exposure conditions due to many variables that determine SAR during realistic usages.