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Mobile phone use, school electromagnetic field levels and related symptoms: a cross-sectional survey among 2150 high school students in Izmir.

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Durusoy R, Hassoy H, Özkurt A, Karababa AO. · 2017

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Mobile phone use was associated with higher rates of headache, fatigue, and sleep disturbances among high school students, with dose-response relationships for call and message frequency.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Headache, fatigue, and sleep disturbances were reported 1.90, 1.78, and 1.53 times more often among mobile phone users. Dose-response relationships were found for call frequency, call duration, text message frequency, phone position at night, and charging while calling with symptoms such as headache, concentration difficulties, fatigue, sleep disturbances, ear warming, and flushing. No association was found between school EMF levels and symptoms, while limited associations were seen for proximity to base stations. Data were collected via questionnaire and EMF measurements from November 2009 to April 2011 using an Aaronia Spectran HF-4060 device.

Why This Matters

The study aimed to describe mobile phone usage characteristics and explore associations with self-reported symptoms and school EMF levels. Among mobile phone users, 49.4% spoke less than 10 minutes per day and 52.2% sent or received 75 or more messages per day. The researchers analyzed 23 symptoms across 16 aspects of mobile phone use and school EMF levels. Statistical analyses used chi-square and trend tests for univariate analysis and logistic regression for multivariate analysis.

Study Details

Our objectives were to describe the mobile phone usage characteristics of high school students and to explore the association between mobile phone usage characteristics, high school EMF levels and self-reported symptoms.

This cross-sectional study's data were collected by a survey questionnaire and by measuring school E...

Among participants, 2021 (94.0%) were using mobile phones and 129 (6.0%) were not. Among users, 49.4...

We found an association between mobile phone use and especially headache, concentration difficulties, fatigue, sleep disturbances and warming of the ear showing also dose-response. We have found limited associations between vicinity to base stations and some general symptoms; however, we did not find any association with school EMF levels. Decreasing the numbers of calls and messages, decreasing the duration of calls, using earphones, keeping the phone away from the head and body and similar precautions might decrease the frequencies or prevalence of the symptoms.

Cite This Study
Durusoy R, Hassoy H, Özkurt A, Karababa AO. (2017). Mobile phone use, school electromagnetic field levels and related symptoms: a cross-sectional survey among 2150 high school students in Izmir. Environ Health. 16(1):51, 2017.
Show BibTeX
@article{r_2017_mobile_phone_use_school_2046,
  author = {Durusoy R and Hassoy H and Özkurt A and Karababa AO.},
  title = {Mobile phone use, school electromagnetic field levels and related symptoms: a cross-sectional survey among 2150 high school students in Izmir.},
  year = {2017},
  
  url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28577556/},
}
PubMed: 28577556

Cited By (61 papers)

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Quick Questions About This Study

Headache, fatigue, and sleep disturbances were reported 1.90, 1.78, and 1.53 times more often among mobile phone users.
Dose-response relationships were observed for call frequency, call duration, text message frequency, phone position at night, and charging while calling with symptoms such as headache, concentration difficulties, fatigue, sleep disturbances, ear warming, and flushing.
No association was found between school EMF levels and symptoms, while limited associations were seen for proximity to base stations.
School EMF levels were measured with an Aaronia Spectran HF-4060 device.
The authors suggested that reducing call and message frequency, using earphones, and keeping the phone away from the head and body might decrease symptom prevalence.