Review of Studies Concerning Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Exposure Assessment in Europe: Low Frequency Fields (50 Hz–100 kHz)

Peter Gajšek, Paolo Ravazzani, James Grellier, Theodoros Samaras, József Bakos and György Thuróczy
Additional contact information
Peter Gajšek: Institute of Non-Ionizing Radiation (INIS), Pohorskega Bataljona 215, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Paolo Ravazzani: Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni IEIIT, CNR Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milan 20133, Italy
James Grellier: European Centre for Environment and Human Health (ECEHH), University of Exeter Medical School, Knowledge Spa, Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, Cornwall TR1 3HD, UK
Theodoros Samaras: Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki GR-54124, Greece
József Bakos: National Research Institute for Radiobiology and Radiohygiene, Anna u.5., Budapest 1221, Hungary
György Thuróczy: National Research Institute for Radiobiology and Radiohygiene, Anna u.5., Budapest 1221, Hungary

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: We aimed to review the findings of exposure assessment studies done in European countries on the exposure of the general public to low frequency electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) of various frequencies. The study shows that outdoor average extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) in public areas in urban environments range between 0.05 and 0.2 µT in terms of flux densities, but stronger values (of the order of a few µT) may occur directly beneath high-voltage power lines, at the walls of transformer buildings, and at the boundary fences of substations. In the indoor environment, high values have been measured close to several domestic appliances (up to the mT range), some of which are held close to the body, e.g., hair dryers, electric shavers. Common sources of exposure to intermediate frequencies (IF) include induction cookers, compact fluorescent lamps, inductive charging systems for electric cars and security or anti-theft devices. No systematic measurement surveys or personal exposimetry data for the IF range have been carried out and only a few reports on measurements of EMFs around such devices are mentioned. According to the available European exposure assessment studies, three population exposure categories were classified by the authors regarding the possible future risk analysis. This classification should be considered a crucial advancement for exposure assessment, which is a mandatory step in any future health risk assessment of EMFs exposure.

Keywords: electromagnetic fields; exposure assessment; exposimetry; ELF magnetic fields; intermediate frequencies (IF) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/9/875/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/9/875/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:9:p:875-:d:77251

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().