Personal RF exposimetry in urban area

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the usefulness of a radiofrequency (RF) personal exposimeter (dosimeter) for assessing individual RF exposure in an urban environment. Measurements taken by RF personal dosimeter were also compared to preliminary site measurements taken around mobile base stations. The results from personal exposure showed that one third of the participants spent 40-70% of 24 h recording time above the detection limits (0.05 V/m), and half of subjects spent less than 10%. The highest exposure was detected during the traveling period and the lowest in bed at home. Based on our results, we concluded that site measurements cannot be used to accurately determine personal exposure. We also concluded that duration of time exposed to RF levels above the detection limit of the personal dosimeter is a useful exposure metric to compare and contrast individual RF exposure of study subjects.

Temporal trends of radio-frequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure in everyday environments across European cities

“…In the last few years, several measurement studies have been conducted characterizing RF-EMF exposure levels in different microenvironments and comparing exposure in different cities using personal exposimeters (Berg-Beckhoff et al, 2009;Bolte and Eikelboom, 2012;Frei et al, 2009;Joseph et al, 2008;Thuróczy et al, 2008;Viel et al, 2009). These studies found that RF-EMF levels in the everyday environment are far below the regulatory limits.…”

Radio-frequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure levels in different European outdoor urban environments in comparison with regulatory limits

“…Such a comparison needs a substantial amount of data from different areas that are collected with the same methodology. Different studies have been conducted comparing RF-EMF exposure levels with measurement devices (exposimeter) in different microenvironments and countries (Bolte et al 2008;Frei et al 2009;Joseph et al 2010;Joseph et al 2008;Thuróczy et al 2008;Viel et al 2009). However, in these studies methods differed between cities concerning recruitment process of volunteers performing measurements, data analysis and/or data collection procedures: e.g.…”

Use of portable exposure meters for comparing mobile phone base station radiation in different types of areas in the cities of Basel and Amsterdam

“…In contrast, portable exposure meters (PEM) allow collecting numerous measurements with relative little effort at different locations (Röösli et al, 2010). Such devices have been successfully applied in a few previous studies (Bolte and Eikelboom, 2012;Frei et al, 2009b;Joseph et al, 2010;Thuróczy et al, 2008;Usher, 2010;Viel et al, 2009). …”