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Use of spot measurements for assessing residential ELF magnetic field exposure: A validity study
Author(s) -
Eskelinen Tuomo,
Keinänen Jari,
Salonen Heidi,
Juutilainen Jukka
Publication year - 2002
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.110
Subject(s) - exposure assessment , statistics , correlation coefficient , occupational exposure , environmental science , mathematics , medicine , environmental health
The purpose of this study was to evaluate residential short term “spot” measurements as surrogates for long term personal magnetic field (MF) exposure. In an epidemiological study on birth weight and pregnancy delay, MF exposure was assessed by taking five spot measurements in each room. For a subsample of 30 subjects 24 h personal MF measurements were made, and the following exposure metrics were calculated: 24 h arithmetic mean, 24 h median, percentage of time above 0.15 μT, and percentage of time above 0.29 μT. The 24 h exposure metrics were used as gold standards, when evaluating the validity of various summary measures calculated from spot measurements for assessing personal exposure. Based on Spearman correlation coefficient (r), specificity and sensitivity, the average of the spot measurements of a residence resulted in least exposure measurement error (misclassification). Also the above bed spot value correlated better with the 24 h metrics than any room average. Spot measurements performed about equally well in predicting different types of exposure metrics. Bioelectromagnetics 23:173–176, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.