Research

Project Title:
Cohort study of mobile phone users (pilot study)

Start Date:
January 2002

Expected Date of Completion:
June 2003

Project Team:
Professor Paul Elliott (Head, Epidemiology & Public Health (DEPH), Imperial College; Director of Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU)
Dr Lars Jarup (Senior Lecturer, DEPH, Imperial College; Assistant Director of SAHSU)
Professor Anders Ahlbom (Head, Environmental Epidemiology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm)

Cost:
£276,000 (pilot study)

Principal Investigator:
Professor Paul Elliot

Contact Details:
Department of Epidemiology & Public Health,
St Mary's Hospital,
Imperial College School of Medicine,
Norfolk Place, Paddington,
London W2 1PG

Expertise:

The main areas of expertise in the group led by Professor Elliott include environmental epidemiology & small-area health statistics. Major programmes include the UK governmentfunded Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) and the EU-funded European Health and Environment Information System (EUROHEIS) for Disease and Exposure Mapping and Risk Assessment. The Imperial College group has considerable experience in designing and running large-scale national environment and health-related studies. Studies of health effects associated with non-ionising radiation include a national study of leukaemia and other cancers near radio and TV transmitters (Am J Epidemiol 1997;145:1-17).

Karolinska Institute:

The group has an excellent track record in epidemiology and 15 years experience in the field of non-ionizing radiation epidemiology. Professor Ahlbom led the Swedish studies of exposure to electromagnetic fields from overhead power lines (Am J Epidemiol 1993; 138:467) and the international meta-analysis on childhood leukaemia and magnetic fields that was published recently (Br J Cancer 2000;83:692 ). Currently a major multi-center casecontrol study on intracranial tumors and phone use is in progress. The Swedish part of this study will include collection of blood samples to create a bio-bank for molecular biological studies on brain tumours.

Approach:

Cohort Study design (see Potential difficulties).

Potential Difficulties:

The initial part of the study is a one-year pilot investigation to establish the feasibility and methods for a large long-term ("cohort") study of the health effects of exposure to radio frequency radiation from use of mobile phones. Due to the large cohort size envisaged for the main study, new methodology for collecting data using modern communications will need to be explored. Similarly, the exposures related to mobile telephony are notoriously difficult to study in epidemiological research. Therefore, novel procedures will be developed and evaluated.

Importance:

With the continuing market penetration of mobile phones and the rapid expansion of new technologies, it is essential to investigate possible health effects prospectively from now, particularly since such effects may be detected only after a long duration, due to prolonged latency period of many chronic diseases.

The existing scientific literature and research gaps have been reviewed recently, for example, by the WHO EMF program and by the UK Stewart commission. They conclude that there are gaps in knowledge and that certain epidemiological studies should be conducted. An international study on intracranial tumours is already under way. However, studies on other end points still need to be established. The overall purpose of the proposed study is to establish a cohort of phone users, to characterize long term radio frequency (RF) exposure of the cohort participants, to collect information on a range of health outcomes, and to examine these in relation to RF exposure.