Calculation of Whole‐Body Average SARs in Pregnant Woman and Child Simultaneously Exposed to Multiple Radio‐Frequency Waves in Real Environment

Abstract

SUMMARYThere are few published papers on the whole‐body average specific absorption rates (WBA‐SARs) in humans for simultaneous exposure to multiple radio frequencies (RFs). In order to evaluate human safety of radiowaves in real environments, in this paper we calculate the WBA‐SARs in models of a pregnant woman and 3‐year‐old child for multiple RF exposure, using measured results on electric field intensities from multiple base station antennas installed for cellular phones with four different radiowave frequencies in an underground shopping mall and with five radiowave frequencies in the neighborhood of an elementary school. The Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications officially reported these data in 2008. Statistical analyses show that the squared sum ratio of the measured electric field to the corresponding Japanese guideline for the general public is smaller than one‐hundredth and one‐thousand at most in the underground shopping mall and elementary school areas, respectively. As a result, we found that the WBA‐SARs in the pregnant woman and 3‐year‐old child models calculated at each of the frequencies for base station antennas in both areas are significantly lower than the The International Commission on Non‐Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) basic restriction (0.08 W/kg) for the general public, and that the sum of the WBA‐SARs never exceeds one‐hundredth of 0.08 W/kg for simultaneous exposure to multiple RF.