Abstract
BackgroundHealth outcomes of electromagnetic fields (EMF) from mobile phones and their base stations are of concern. Conducting multidisciplinary research, targeting children and exploring dose-response are recommended. Our objectives were to describe the mobile phone usage characteristics of high school students and to explore the association between mobile phone usage characteristics, high school EMF levels and self-reported symptoms.MethodsThis cross-sectional study’s data were collected by a survey questionnaire and by measuring school EMF levels between November 2009 and April 2011. A sample size of 2530 was calculated from a total of 20,493 students in 26 high schools and 2150 (85.0%) were included in the analysis. The frequencies of 23 symptoms were questioned and analysed according to 16 different aspects of mobile phone use and school EMF levels, exploring also dose-response. School EMF levels were measured with Aaronia Spectran HF-4060 device. Chi square and trend tests were used for univariate and logistic regression was used for multivariate analyses.ResultsAmong participants, 2021 (94.0%) were using mobile phones and 129 (6.0%) were not. Among users, 49.4% were speaking <10 min and 52.2% were sending/receiving 75 or more messages per day. Headache, fatigue and sleep disturbances were observed respectively 1.90 (95% CI 1.30–2.77), 1.78 (1.21–2.63) and 1.53 (1.05–2.21) times more among mobile phone users. Dose-response relationships were observed especially for the number of calls per day, total duration of calls per day, total number of text messages per day, position and status of mobile phone at night and making calls while charging as exposures and headache, concentration difficulties, fatigue and sleep disturbances as general symptoms and warming of the ear and flushing as local symptoms.ConclusionsWe found an association between mobile phone use and especially headache, concentration difficulties, fatigue, sleep disturbances and warming of the ear showing also dose-response. We have found limited associations between vicinity to base stations and some general symptoms; however, we did not find any association with school EMF levels. Decreasing the numbers of calls and messages, decreasing the duration of calls, using earphones, keeping the phone away from the head and body and similar precautions might decrease the frequencies or prevalence of the symptoms.
Highlights
Health outcomes of electromagnetic fields (EMF) from mobile phones and their base stations are of concern
The human body is lacking an organ or system to detect or sense radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF), in contrast to our eyes which detect visible light, another band of the electromagnetic spectrum, though cumulating literature about electromagnetic hypersensitivity has opened a controversy on the presence of variations among human beings in a kind of ‘sense’ of electromagnetic fields, or a ‘sense’ of the changes occurring in the body under EMF, with many randomized provocation studies unable to prove a link between such sensitivity and RF-EMF [3,4,5]
The mobile phone ownership and utilization ratios were high among adolescents, who are considered as a risk group for electromagnetic field exposure
Summary
Health outcomes of electromagnetic fields (EMF) from mobile phones and their base stations are of concern. The number of mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions was 7.216 billion worldwide, equivalent to 98.6 per 100 inhabitants in 2015 [1]. With the widening use of mobile phones, health concerns have increased. In PubMed, the yearly number of articles found with the search term “mobile phone” has steadily and logarithmically increased from
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