Background
Radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposures are ubiquitous. While the use of mobile phones, when held directly to the head, represents the main source of exposure for adolescence, environmental exposures to RF-EMFs are the main contributors among younger children. While previous research on mobile phone use didn’t show an association with brain tumours, less research is done on environmental exposures to RF-EMF and cancer. The CIRE-RF project (Childhood cancer in relation to RF-EMF from television and radio broadcast stations) aims to investigate potential risks of childhood cancer main subtypes in relation to RF-EMF from TV and amplitude modulated (AM)/frequency modulated (FM) radio broadcast stations.
Objectives
In this abstract we present analysis of the distribution of exposures to RF-EMF from AM, FM and analogue TV antennas of the paediatric population living in metropolitan France in the period 2002-2013.
Methods
The CIRE-RF study is based on the GEOCAP-Diag study led by OPPaLE team (INSERM UMR1153, CRESS). GEOCAP-Diag study is an un-matched population-based case-control study, including 20,344 cancer cases from the French National Registry of Childhood Cancer, living in France and aged up to 15 years at the end of the year of diagnosis over the period 2002–2013 and 60,189 controls representative of the French childhood population. Controls were sampled each year, among all children less than 15 years old at the end of the year of inclusion, living in mainland France, identified using the national income and council tax databases. The residential addresses at the time of diagnosis for the cases and at the time of inclusion for the controls were geocoded using a Geographic Information System.
We identified AM long-wave (AM-LW), AM medium-wave (AM-MW), FM and analogue TV broadcasting emitters in the vicinity or with substantial impact on exposure levels of each control recruited in GEOCAP-diag study. For each study subject, we calculated a total outdoor FM-equivalent ICNIRP-weighted average field strength (V/m) at the geocoded addresses of the residence for the period 2002-2013.
Results
Median distance between residence and the most influential emitter varied between 3.5 km and 202 km for FM emitters and AM-LW, respectively. The distance decreased with increasing emitter’s frequency (AM-LW > AM-MW > TV > FM), reflecting denser networks at higher frequencies that are characterized with lower power. The estimated total outdoor average frequency-weighted field strength (V/m) for the period 2002-2013 varied from 0.01 V/m to 15.18 V/m, with a right-skewed distribution corresponding to a median and a p95% values of 0.08 V/m and 0.70 V/m, respectively. We observed statistically significant differences in both total and frequency specific exposures across categories of French deprivation index and urbanisation.
Conclusions
Calculated exposures are compliant with national regulatory limits. AM RF-EMF sources are known to be among the strongest contributors to childhood RF-EMF exposure and show substantial exposure gradients in this population, making them a suitable target candidate to get insight into the role of RF-EMF exposure in the aetiology of cancer in young children. Further analyses will include cancer risk assessment.