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Subjective symptoms among mobile phone users—A consequence of absorption of radiofrequency fields?
Author(s) -
Wilén Jonna,
Sandström Monica,
Hansson Mild Kjell
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
bioelectromagnetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.435
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-186X
pISSN - 0197-8462
DOI - 10.1002/bem.10101
Subject(s) - specific absorption rate , epidemiology , bioelectromagnetics , mobile phone , medicine , demography , absorption (acoustics) , audiology , computer science , telecommunications , physics , magnetic field , quantum mechanics , sociology , antenna (radio) , acoustics
In a previous epidemiological study, where we studied the prevalence of subjective symptoms among mobile phone (MP) users, we found as an interesting side finding that the prevalence of many of the subjective symptoms increased with increasing calling time and number of calls per day. In this extrapolative study, we have selected 2402 people from the epidemiological study who used any of the four most common GSM MP. We used the information about the prevalence of symptoms, calling time per day, and number of calls per day and combined it with measurements of the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). We defined three volumes in the head and measured the maximum SAR averaged over a cube of 1 g tissue (SAR 1g ) in each volume. Two new exposure parameters Specific Absorption per Day (SAD) and Specific Absorption per Call (SAC) have been devised and are obtained as combinations of SAR, calling time per day, and number of calls per day, respectively. The results indicates that SAR values >0.5 W/kg may be an important factor for the prevalence of some of the symptoms, especially in combination with long calling times per day. Bioelectromagnetics 24:152–159, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.