title: Measuring personal exposure from 900MHz mobile phone base stations in Australia and Belgium using a novel personal distributed exposimeter.
abstract: The aims of this study were to: i) measure personal exposure in the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) 900MHz downlink (DL) frequency band with two systems of exposimeters, a personal distributed exposimeter (PDE) and a pair of ExpoM-RFs, ii) compare the GSM 900MHz DL exposures across various microenvironments in Australia and Belgium, and iii) evaluate the correlation between the PDE and ExpoM-RFs measurements. Personal exposure data were collected using the PDE and two ExpoM-RFs simultaneously across 34 microenvironments (17 each in Australia and Belgium) located in urban, suburban and rural areas. Summary statistics of the electric field strengths (V/m) were computed and compared across similar microenvironments in Australia and Belgium. The personal exposures across urban microenvironments were higher than those in the rural or suburban microenvironments. Likewise, the exposure levels across the outdoor were higher than those for indoor microenvironments. The five highest median exposure levels were: city centre (0.248V/m), bus (0.124V/m), railway station (0.105V/m), mountain/forest (rural) (0.057V/m), and train (0.055V/m) [Australia]; and bicycle (urban) (0.238V/m), tram station (0.238V/m), city centre (0.156V/m), residential outdoor (urban) (0.139V/m) and park (0.124V/m) [Belgium]. Exposures in the GSM900 MHz frequency band across most of the microenvironments in Australia were significantly lower than the exposures across the microenvironments in Belgium. Overall correlations between the PDE and the ExpoM-RFs measurements were high. The measured exposure levels were far below the general public reference levels recommended in the guidelines of the ICNIRP and the ARPANSA.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy (PRESEE), School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, The Alfred Centre, 99 Commercial Road, Victoria 3004, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: chhavi.bhatt@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Chhavi Raj
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Bhatt
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology, Ghent University/iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8 Box 201, Ghent B-9050, Belgium. Electronic address: Arno.Thielens@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: Arno
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thielens
authors.affiliation: Centre for Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy (PRESEE), School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, The Alfred Centre, 99 Commercial Road, Victoria 3004, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: mary.redmayne@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Redmayne
authors.affiliation: Centre for Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy (PRESEE), School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, The Alfred Centre, 99 Commercial Road, Victoria 3004, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: michael.abramson@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Abramson
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, The Alfred Centre, 99 Commercial Road, Victoria 3004, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: Baki.Billah@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Baki
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Billah
authors.affiliation: Centre for Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy (PRESEE), School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, The Alfred Centre, 99 Commercial Road, Victoria 3004, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: malcolm.sim@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Malcolm R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Sim
authors.affiliation: Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS), Division Environmental Epidemiology, Utrecht University, Yalelaan 2, 3584 CM Utrecht, The Netherlands; Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Imperial College, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, London, United Kingdom. Electronic address: R.C.H.Vermeulen@uu.nl.
authors.forename: Roel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vermeulen
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology, Ghent University/iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8 Box 201, Ghent B-9050, Belgium. Electronic address: luc.martens@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Martens
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology, Ghent University/iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8 Box 201, Ghent B-9050, Belgium. Electronic address: wout.joseph@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: Wout
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Joseph
authors.affiliation: Centre for Population Health Research on Electromagnetic Energy (PRESEE), School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, The Alfred Centre, 99 Commercial Road, Victoria 3004, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: geza.benke@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Geza
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Benke
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D001530:Belgium; D040421:Cell Phone; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006798:Housing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D011846:Radio Waves