Abstract
BackgroundRecent years have seen a rapid increase in the use of mobile phones and other sources of microwave radiation, raising concerns about possible adverse health effects. As children have longer expected lifetime exposures to microwaves from these devices than adults, who started to use them later in life, they are a group of special interest.MethodsWe performed a population-based study to assess ownership and use of mobile phones and cordless phones among children aged 7–14 years. A questionnaire comprising 24 questions was sent to 2000 persons selected from the Swedish population registry using a stratified sampling scheme.ResultsThe response rate was 71.2%. Overall, 79.1% of the respondents reported mobile phone access, and 26.7% of them talked for 2 minutes or more per day. Of those who reported mobile phone access, only 5.9% reported use of hands-free equipment. Use of cordless phones was reported by 83.8% of the respondents and 38.5% of them talked for 5 minutes or more per day. Girls generally reported more frequent use than boys.ConclusionThis study showed that most children had access to and used mobile and cordless phones early in life and that there was a rapid increase in use with age. It also showed very low use of hands-free equipment among children with mobile phone access, and finally that girls talked significantly more minutes per day using mobile and cordless phones than boys did.
Highlights
Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the use of mobile phones and other sources of microwave radiation, raising concerns about possible adverse health effects
This study showed that most Swedish children in the 7–14 age group seemed to begin mobile phone and DECT use early in life and that there was a steep increase in use with age
It showed that girls generally talked for significantly more minutes per day using mobile phones and DECT than boys, and that the frequency of use of hands-free equipment was very low among children with mobile phone access
Summary
Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the use of mobile phones and other sources of microwave radiation, raising concerns about possible adverse health effects. Over the last years there has been a rapid worldwide increase in the use of mobile phones and other sources of microwave radiation. Many European countries have a mobile phone penetration rate of more than 100%, which is to say there are more subscribers than inhabitants [2]. Most epidemiological studies on radiation from hand-held mobile phones and possible adverse health effects have shown no increased risk [4], but whether the existing studies have had sufficiently long follow-up times to permit firm conclusions regarding chronic diseases is still debatable [5,6]
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