Boussad, Y. orcid.org/0000-0001-9690-8221, Chen, X.L., Legout, A. et al. (2 more authors) (2022) Longitudinal study of exposure to radio frequencies at population scale. Environment International, 162. 107144. ISSN 0160-4120
Abstract
Evaluating exposure to radio frequencies (RF) at population-scale is important for conducting sound epidemiological studies about possible health impact of RF radiations. Numerous studies reported population exposure to RF radiations used in wireless telecommunication technologies, but used very small population samples. In this context, the real exposure of the population at scale remains poorly understood. Here, to the best of our knowledge, we report the largest crowd-based measurement of population exposure to RF produced by cellular antennas, Wi-Fi access points, and Bluetooth devices for 254,410 unique users in 13 countries from January 2017 to December 2020. First, we present methods to assess the population exposure to RF radiations using smartphone measurements obtained using the ElectroSmart Android app. Then, we use these methods to evaluate and characterize the evolution of RF exposure. We show that total exposure has been multiplied by 2.3 in the four-year period considered, with Wi-Fi as the largest contributor. The cellular exposure levels are orders of magnitude lower than regulation limits and are not correlated to national regulation policies. The population tends to be more exposed at home; for half of the study subjects, personal Wi-Fi routers and Bluetooth devices contributed to more than 50% of their total exposure. In this work, we showcase how crowdsource-based data allow large-scale and long-term assessment of population exposure to RF radiations.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Radiofrequency; Population exposure; Crowdsource; Personal measurements; Large-scale |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > Institute for Transport Studies (Leeds) > ITS: Sustainable Transport Policy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 14 Jun 2024 09:47 |
Last Modified: | 14 Jun 2024 09:47 |
Published Version: | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107144 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:213516 |
Download
Filename: Longitudinal study of exposure to radio frequencies at population scale.pdf
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0