Children's exposure assessment of radiofrequency fields: Comparison between spot and personal measurements.
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INTRODUCTION Radiofrequency RF fields are widely used and while it is still unknown whether children are more vulnerable to this type of exposure it is essential to explore their level of exposure in order to conduct adequate epidemiological studies Personal measurements provide individualized information but they are costly in terms of time and resources especially in large epidemiological studies Other approaches such as estimation of time weighted averages TWAs based on spot measurements could simplify the work OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to assess RF exposure in the Spanish INMA birth cohort by spot measurements and by personal measurements in the settings where children tend to spend most of their time i e homes schools and parks to identify the settings and sources that contribute most to that exposure and to explore if exposure assessment based on spot measurements is a valid proxy for personal exposure METHODS When children were 8 years old spot measurements were conducted in the principal settings of 104 participants homes 104 schools and their playgrounds 26 and parks 79 At the same time personal measurements were taken for a subsample of 50 children during 3 days Exposure assessment based on personal and on spot measurements were compared both in terms of mean exposures and in exposure dependent categories by means of Bland Altman plots Cohen s kappa and McNemar test RESULTS Median exposure levels ranged from 29 73 in children s bedrooms to 200 10 W m2 in school playgrounds for spot measurements and were higher outdoors than indoors Median personal exposure was 52 13 W m2 and median levels of assessments based on spot measurements ranged from 25 46 to 123 21 W m2 Based on spot measurements the sources that contributed most to the exposure were FM radio mobile phone downlink and Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial while indoor and personal sources contributed very little altogether Under20 Similar distribution was observed with personal measurements There was a bias proportional to power density between personal measurements and estimates based on spot measurements with the latter providing higher exposure estimates Nevertheless there were no systematic differences between those methodologies when classifying subjects into exposure categories Personal measurements of total RF exposure showed low to moderate agreement with home and bedroom spot measurements and agreed better though moderately with TWA based on spot measurements in the main settings where children spend time homes schools and parks Kappa 0 46 CONCLUSIONS Exposure assessment based on spot measurements could be a feasible proxy to rank personal RF exposure in children population providing that all relevant locations are being measured