Impact of one's own mobile phone in stand-by mode on personal radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure.

Bioeffects Seen

Urbinello D, Röösli M. · 2013

Personal RF-EMF exposure is affected by one's own mobile phone in stand-by mode because of its regular location update.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Researchers measured uplink exposure from a mobile phone handset during commuting using a randomized cross-over study with three scenarios: a disabled phone, an activated dual-band phone, and a quad-band phone. In the reference scenario, uplink exposure was highest during train rides at 1.19 mW/m2 and lowest during car rides in rural areas at 0.001 mW/m2. In public transports, the impact of one's own mobile phone on personal RF-EMF measurements was not observable due to high background uplink radiation from other people's mobile phones. In a car, uplink exposure with an activated phone was orders of magnitude higher compared with the reference scenario.

Why This Matters

The authors conclude that personal RF-EMF exposure is affected by one's own mobile phone in stand-by mode because of its regular location update. They recommend further dosimetric studies to quantify the contribution of location updates to total RF-EMF exposure and to clarify whether duration of mobile phone use is an adequate exposure proxy.

Exposure Details

Power Density: 0.0000001, 0.000119 mW/cm²

Exposure Context

This study used 0.0000001, 0.000119 mW/cm² for radio frequency:

10x above the Building Biology guideline of 0.1 μW/m²
0.2x above the BioInitiative Report recommendation of 0.0006 μW/cm²

Building Biology guidelines are practitioner-based limits from real-world assessments. BioInitiative Report recommendations are based on peer-reviewed science. Check Your Exposure to compare your own measurements.

Where This Falls on the Concern Scale

Study Details

The aim of this paper is to evaluate how personal radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) measurements are affected by such location updates

Exposure from a mobile phone handset (uplink) was measured during commuting by using a randomized cr...

In public transports, the impact of one’s own mobile phone on personal RF-EMF measurements was not o...

Cite This Study

Urbinello D, Röösli M. (2013). Impact of one's own mobile phone in stand-by mode on personal radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 23:545-548, 2013.

Show BibTeX

@article{d_2013_impact_of_ones_own_1388,
  author = {Urbinello D and Röösli M.},
  title = {Impact of one's own mobile phone in stand-by mode on personal radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure.},
  year = {2013},
  
  url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/jes201297},
}

Quick Questions About This Study

Exposure from a mobile phone handset (uplink) was measured during commuting by using a randomized cross-over study with three different scenarios: disabled mobile phone (reference), an activated dual-band phone and a quad-band phone.

In the reference scenario, uplink exposure was highest during train rides (1.19 mW/m2) and lowest during car rides in rural areas (0.001 mW/m2).

In public transports, the impact of one's own mobile phone on personal RF-EMF measurements was not observable because of high background uplink radiation from other people's mobile phone.

In a car, uplink exposure with an activated phone was orders of magnitude higher compared with the reference scenario.

This study demonstrates that personal RF-EMF exposure is affected by one's own mobile phone in stand-by mode because of its regular location update. Further dosimetric studies should quantify the contribution of location updates to the total RF-EMF exposure to clarify whether the duration of mobile phone use is an adequate exposure proxy.