Abstract
Background: Effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure (RF-EMF) from mobile phone use on sleep quality has mainly been investigated in cross-sectional studies. The few previous prospective cohort studies found no or inconsistent associations, but had limited statistical power and short follow-up. In this large prospective cohort study, our aim was to estimate the effect of RF-EMF from mobile phone use on different sleep outcomes. Materials and methods: The study included Swedish (n = 21,049) and Finnish (n = 3120) participants enrolled in the Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS) with information about operator-recorded mobile phone use at baseline and sleep outcomes both at baseline and at the 4-year follow-up. Sleep disturbance, sleep adequacy, daytime somnolence, sleep latency, and insomnia were assessed using the Medical Outcome Study (MOS) sleep questionnaire. Results: Operator-recorded mobile phone use at baseline was not associated with most of the sleep outcomes. For insomnia, an odds ratio (OR) of 1.24, 95% CI 1.03–1.51 was observed in the highest decile of mobile phone call-time (>258 min/week). With weights assigned to call-time to account for the lower RF-EMF exposure from Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS, 3G) than from Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM, 2G) the OR was 1.09 (95% CI 0.89–1.33) in the highest call-time decile. Conclusion: Insomnia was slightly more common among mobile phone users in the highest call-time category, but adjustment for the considerably lower RF-EMF exposure from the UMTS than the GSM network suggests that this association is likely due to other factors associated with mobile phone use than RF-EMF. No association was observed for other sleep outcomes. In conclusion, findings from this study do not support the hypothesis that RF-EMF from mobile phone use has long-term effects on sleep quality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 105687 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Environment international |
| Volume | 140 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2020 |
Funding
The Swedish part of COSMOS was supported by the Swedish Research Council ( 50096102 ); AFA Insurance ( T-26:04 ); the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare ( 2010-0082 , 2014-0889 ); the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority ( SSM2015-2408 ); and VINNOVA ( P31735-1 ). VINNOVA received funds for this purpose from TeliaSonera AB, Ericsson AB and Telenor Sverige AB, to cover part of the data collection (ended 2012). The provision of funds to the COSMOS study investigators via VINNOVA was governed by agreements that guarantees COSMOS’ complete scientific independence. TeliaSonera, Telenor, 3, and Tele2 made it possible for their subscribers to participate with traffic data. The Finnish cohort was supported by funding from the National Technology Agency (TEKES), with contributions to the research program from Nokia, mobile network providers TeliaSonera and Elisa; Pirkanmaa Hospital District competitive research funding (grant no. VTR 9T003); Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation (grant no. 5692); Kone Foundation, and an unrestricted grant from Mobile Manufacturers’ Forum (with Pirkanmaa Hospital District as a firewall) with a contract guaranteeing the complete scientific independence of the researchers to analyze, interpret and report the results with no influence for the funding sources. The UK part of COSMOS was supported for an initial 5-year period by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR), an independent programme of research into mobile phones and health jointly supported by the UK Department of Health and the mobile telecommunications industry (project reference number 091/0006) and, subsequently, funded by the UK Department of Health & Social Care via its Policy Research Programme (project reference number PR-ST-0713-00003); as well as by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Health Impact of Environmental Hazards at King’s College London in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) and Imperial College London (HPRU-2012-10141). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health & Social Care or Public Health England. PE is Director of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health supported by the Medical Research Council and Public Health England (MR/L01341X/1, 2009-2019; solely by the Medical Research Council MR/S019669/1, 2019-), and the UK MEDical BIOinformatics partnership (UK MED-BIO) supported by the Medical Research Council (MR/L01632X/1). PE acknowledges support from the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre. PE is a UK Dementia Research Institute (DRI) Professor, UK DRI at Imperial College London. The UK DRI is funded by the Medical Research Council, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK. The Dutch part of the COSMOS study was supported by The Netherlands Organization for Health Research (ZonMW) within the programme Electromagnetic Fields and Health Research, under grant numbers 85200001, 85500003, 85200002 and 85800001. The French part of COSMOS is funded by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES), project reference number 2013-CRD-17, 2015-CRD-30, 2018-CRD-03 and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Keywords
- Cell phone
- Cohort study
- Electromagnetic fields
- Insomnia
- Sleep disturbance