Use of portable exposure meters for comparing mobile phone base station radiation in different types of areas in the cities of Basel and Amsterdam

BACKGROUND: Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) are highly variable and differ considerably within as well as between areas. Exposure assessment studies characterizing spatial and temporal variation are limited so far. Our objective was to evaluate sources of data variability and the repeatability of daily measurements using portable exposure meters (PEMs). METHODS: Data were collected at 12days between November 2010 and January 2011 with PEMs in four different types of urban areas in the cities of Basel (BSL) and Amsterdam (AMS). RESULTS: Exposure from mobile phone base stations ranged from 0.30 to 0.53V/m in downtown and business areas and in residential areas from 0.09 to 0.41V/m. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) demonstrated that measurements from various days were highly reproducible (measurement duration of approximately 30min) with only 0.6% of the variance of all measurements from mobile phone base station radiation being explained by the measurement day and only 0.2% by the measurement time (morning, noon, afternoon), whereas type of area (30%) and city (50%) explained most of the data variability. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that mobile monitoring of exposure from mobile phone base station radiation with PEMs is useful due to the high repeatability of mobile phone base station exposure levels, despite the high spatial variation.