Abstract
This study sought to characterize personal exposures of Canadian children to 60-Hz magnetic and electric fields and explain the variability. Altogether 382 Canadian children up to 15 years of age wore meters recording 60-Hz electric and magnetic fields over 2 days. Meter location was noted. Thereafter, meters measured fields in the center of the children's bedrooms for 24 hours. Personal exposures were calculated for home, school or day care, outside the home, bedroom at night, and all categories combined (total). The arithmetic mean (AM) was 0.121 microT [geometric mean (GM): 0.085 microT), range 0.01-0.8 microT] for total magnetic fields. Fifteen percent of the total exposures exceeded 0.2 microT. The AM of the total electric fields was 14.4 (GM 12.3, range 0.82-64.7) V/m. By location category, the highest and lowest magnetic fields occurred at home during the day (0.142 microT) and during the night (0.112 microT), respectively. Measurements during sleep provided the highest correlation with total magnetic field exposure. Province of measurement explained 14.7% of the variation in the logarithms of total magnetic fields, and season accounted for an additional 1.5%. This study has identified differences in children's magnetic field exposures between provinces. Measurements at night provided the best surrogate for predicting total magnetic field exposure, followed by at-home exposure and 24-hour bedroom measurements. Electrical heating and air conditioning, wiring type, and type of housing appear to be promising indicators of magnetic field levels.
Highlights
This study sought to characterizepersonal exposures of Canadian children to 60-Hz magnetic and electric fields and explain the variability
When the magnetic and electric fields were compared, the total 48-hour exposures were not correlated (r=0.04), but the at-home, school, and outside components showed small-to-negligible correlations (r=0.28, 0.17 and 0.02, respectively). This is the first report of personal measurements of magnetic and electric fields on a large sample of children from the general population in Canada
The reader should bear in mind that the narrow-bandwidth of the Positron meter used in our study may produce slightly lower readings than a broadband instrument in the presence of harmonics
Summary
This study sought to characterizepersonal exposures of Canadian children to 60-Hz magnetic and electric fields and explain the variability. Methods Altogether 382 Canadian children up to 15 years of age wore meters recording 60-Hz electric and magnetic fields over 2 days. Thereafter, meters measured fields in the center of the children's bedrooms for 24 hours. The AM of the total electric fields was 14.4(GM 12.3,range 0.82-64.7) V/m. The highest and lowest magnetic fields occurred at home during the day (0.142 yT) and during the night (0.112 KT), respectively. C O ~ C ~ U S ~ThOis~sStudy has identified differences in children's magnetic field exposures between provinces. Measurements at night provided the best surrogate for predicting total magnetic field exposure, followed by athome exposure and 24-hour bedroom measurements. Electrical heating and air conditioning, wiring type, and type of housing appear to be promising indicatorsof magnetic field levels
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