ORIGINAL PAPER
Multiple assessment methods of prenatal exposure to radio frequency radiation from telecommunication in the Mothers and Children’s Environmental Health (MOCEH) study
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Hallym University, Chunchun, Korea (Hallym Research Institute of Clinical Epidemiology)
 
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Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea (College of Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine)
 
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Moonkyung College, Moonkyung, Korea (Department of Nursing)
 
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Graduate School of Dankook University, Cheonan, Korea (Department of Public Health)
 
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Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea (College of Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine)
 
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University of Ulsan, Ulsan, Korea (College of Medicine, Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine)
 
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Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea (Radio Technology Research Department)
 
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Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Korea (College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Information and Communication Engineering)
 
 
Online publication date: 2016-11-03
 
 
Corresponding author
Mina Ha   

Dankook University, College of Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine, 119 Dandae-ro, Dongnam-gu, 330-714, Cheonan-si, Chungnam-do, Korea
 
 
Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2016;29(6):959-72
 
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ABSTRACT
Objectives: To evaluate prenatal exposure to radiofrequency radiation (RFR) from telecommunication using a mobile phone questionnaire, operator data logs of mobile phone use and a personal exposure meter (PEM). Material and Methods: The study included 1228 mother–infants pairs from the Mothers and Children’s Environmental Health (MOCEH) study – a multicenter prospective cohort study ongoing since 2006, in which participants were enrolled at ≤ 20 weeks of pregnancy, with a follow-up of a child birth and growth to assess the association between prenatal environmental exposure and children’s health. The questionnaire included the average calling frequency per day and the average calling time per day. An EME Spy 100 PEM was used to measure RFR among 269 pregnant women from November 2007 to August 2010. The operators’ log data were obtained from 21 participants. The Spearman’s correlation test was performed to evaluate correlation coefficient and 95% confidence intervals between the mobile phone use information from the questionnaire, operators’ log data, and data recorded by the PEM. Results: The operators’ log data and information from the self-reported questionnaire showed significantly high correlations in the average calling frequency per day (ρ = 0.6, p = 0.004) and average calling time per day (ρ = 0.5, p = 0.02). The correlation between information on the mobile phone use in the self-reported questionnaire and exposure index recorded by the PEM was poor. But correlation between the information of the operators’ log data and exposure index for transmission of mobile communication was significantly high: correlation coefficient (p-value) was 0.44 (0.07) for calling frequency per day, and it was 0.49 (0.04) for calling time per day. Conclusions: The questionnaire information on the mobile phone use showed moderate to high quality. Using multiple methods for exposure assessment might be better than using only one method. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2016;29(6):959–972
eISSN:1896-494X
ISSN:1232-1087
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