Mireille Toledano, James Bennett, David Briggs, Paul Elliott

1
Non-ionising radiation and health research

• Mireille Toledano, James Bennett, David Briggs,
  Paul Elliott
• Department of Epidemiology and Public Health,
  Imperial College London

The department has one of the largest
electro-magnetic field (EMF) and health research
programmes worldwide. Current research includes
register-based studies around mobile phone base
stations, as well as cohort studies of mobile
phone use amongst the general public and
Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) use by the
police. Proposed future research includes a
cohort study of mobile phone use amongst
secondary school children.

• 3. Airwave health monitoring across UK police
  force
• Health Monitoring Programme includes
• Long-term follow-up of health of Police Force to
  investigate possible long-term health effects
  associated with Airwave use. Enrolment via
  questionnaire (Figure 1)
• National health screening (Figure 2)
• Short-term study to investigate effects of
  Airwave on neuro-cognitive function and
  electrical activity in the brain (EEG).

• 1. Mobile phone base stations and childhood
  cancers
• Aim
• To investigate the risk of childhood cancers near
  mobile phone base stations.
• Cases Leukaemia/NHL all cancers, ages 0-4
  years, 1999-2001, Great Britain (national cancer
  register)
• Controls Birthdate sex-matched controls (4 per
  case) from the national births register
• Exposure assessment
• Distance to the nearest mast (Figure 1)
• Total power output of all masts within a 700m
  radius of place of residence.
• Gaussian modelled power density - all mobile
  phone masts lt1.4km (Figure 2)
• A number of field surveys were undertaken for
  calibration of the exposure model and validation
  of all three exposure measures.

• 2. International cohort study on mobile phone use
  and health (COSMOS)
• Aims
• To establish an international cohort of mobile
  phone users aged 18 via operator subscriber
  lists in a number of countries (Figure 1). A
  group from The Netherlands has also recently
  joined the study
• To characterise exposure to mobile phone use via
  a questionnaire and network traffic data for 3
  months at baseline. Repeated annual downloads of
  traffic data and a repeat questionnaire will
  enable assessment of any changes in mobile phone
  use over time
• To follow cohort for 25 years in terms of
  symptoms, mortality, cancer incidence, and other
  health outcomes (Figure 2)

• 4. Proposed research cohort study of mobile
  phone use, symptoms and cognitive ability amongst
  secondary school children
• This proposed 5-year study will
• pilot (year 1) and then establish and follow a
  cohort of 10,000 Year 7 (11/12 year old) children
  from secondary schools across south-east England
  for a period of 4 years.
• investigate whether mobile phone use is related
  to a change in prevalence of symptoms and
  cognitive ability.
• The study will address the limitations of
  available evidence by
• prospectively collecting self-reported
  information on mobile phone use together with
  objective traffic data from network operators
• investigating change in prevalence of specific
  symptoms over time in relation to mobile phone
  use
• assessment of cognitive function and change in
  cognitive ability over time in relation to mobile
  phone use.
• Timescale
• Research objectives will be carried out in three
  phases (Figure 1).