Topic

Determination of the exposure of groups of people that will be investigated within the scope of the project 'Cross-sectional study for ascertainment and assessment of possible adverse effects by the fields of mobile phone base stations'

Start

01.02.2003

End

31.01.2005

Project Management

ECOLOG Institute, Hannover

Objective

Goal of this project was to develop and to test a procedure for RF dosimetry in epidemiological studies. Initially, a definition of special requirements for the dosimetry in epidemiological studies dealing with exposure by RF transmitters (in particular mobile radio base stations) had to be developed. Taking these requirements into account the development of a suitable procedure for the determination of electromagnetic exposures in the surrounding of mobile radio base stations was the next step in the project. Finally the procedure had to be tested.

The following methodical procedures should be pursued:

• Literature survey and implementation of a literature database.
• Analysis of literature with respect to requirements to the dosimetry used in epidemiological studies dealing with exposure by RF transmitters.
• Analysis of literature and measurement campaigns with respect to proposed procedures and their potential for dosimetry in epidemiological studies.
• Development of a measurement procedure. Measurement of electromagnetic fields in dwellings in the surrounding from mobile radio base stations to determine spatial distributions, temporal variations and the influences of the orientation to the base stations. Also influences caused by surrounding housings and vegetation should be taken into account.
• Development of procedures to compute electromagnetic fields in dwellings in the environment of mobile radio base stations by using information on technical data of the sites (or data taken from legal operation certificates respectively) and empirical propagation factors in different settlement structures.
• Comparison of estimated exposure derived from computations with those derived from measurements.

Results

The project is finished. An evaluation of the available literature was perfomed that shows present technical possibilities to provide individual exposure estimation for epidemiological studies. Both approaches, measurements and computations are taken into account. Requirements on dosimetry are discussed. A literature database was implemented. One measurement procedure and two computational methods to estimate electromagnetic fields in dwellings in the environment of mobile radio base stations have been developed. To gather information on empirical propagation factors and to test the performance of the computational exposure estimation, measurements in a great number of dwellings have been carried out. Effort was concentrated mainly on GSM cellular networks. Immissions caused by UMTS base stations have been widely ignored because UMTS networks have yet been under construction during the course of the project. Calculated and measured values were in fair to good agreement, depending on type of surrounding housing.

The final report is available as PDF-file (3.519 KB) in German.

References

• H.-P. Neitzke, J. Osterhoff, K. Peklo and H. Voigt: Determination of exposure due to mobile phone base stations in an epidemiological study, Radiation Protection Dosimetry, Vol. 124, No. 1, 2007, pp. 35-39, doi:10.1093/rpd/ncm371
• J. Breckenkamp, H. P. Neitzke, C. Bornkessel and G. Berg-Beckhoff: "Applicability of an Exposure Model for the Determination of Emissions from Mobile Phone Base Stations", Radiation Protection Dosimetry 131 (4): 474--481; doi:10.1093/rpd/ncn201

Conclusion

Epidemiological studies investigating possible adverse effects caused by electromagnetic fields of mobile radio base stations need individual, high quality exposure estimations. Work done in this project shows an improvement compared to only distance based approaches. In the context of an ongoing epidemiological cross sectional study an additional validation of the proposed method will be performed.