A Comparison of Microenvironmental Personal Radiofrequency–Electromagnetic Exposures in Melbourne and Geelong

Background As a part of the Australian Government’s Electromagnetic Energy action plan 2020-24, 1 the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) has been undertaking an assessment of microenvironmental personal radiofrequency–electromagnetic (RF-EMF) exposures during the year 2022. Microenvironments are relatively small environments (e.g., residential outdoor, shopping, park, public transport, etc.) where human activities take place, and understanding of personal RF-EMF exposures in these spaces are relevant in view of any potential health effects. The ARPANSA’s microenvironmental RF-EMF assessment program involves collection of personal RF-EMF exposure data across 100 different microenvironments (e. g., residential outdoor, shopping center, bus/train, park, etc.) relevant to Australian populations. The data collection is underway (expected completion in December 2022) in Victoria; the capital city (Greater Melbourne), and two regional cities of Geelong and Latrobe. Of the 100 microenvironments, the project will evaluate 75 microenvironments in Greater Melbourne, and 25 in regional cities (Geelong, n=18 and Latrobe, n=7). While some historical information about microenvironmental personal RF-EMF exposures in Melbourne is available, 2, 3 a similar comparable data for any Victorian regional city or town are lacking. This indicates an obvious knowledge gap regarding RF-EMF personal exposures in regional Australia. Purpose and scope Within the framework of ongoing monitoring population RF-EMF exposures in Australia, this proposed student project will utilize a part of existing data to compare and characterize microenvironmental personal RF-EMF exposures in Melbourne and Geelong. This will be a Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) research program to be pursued in collaboration with Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. An honours student, with a joint supervision of ARPANSA and Monash University staff, will undertake this research work from February to October 2023. The student will be co-hosted at both organizations, as negotiable between the student and supervisors. The student will be co- hosted at Research and Advice Section (ARPANSA) and Monash University. The project will be supervised by Dr Chhavi Bhatt and Dr Stuart Henderson (ARPANSA) and Dr Geza Benke (Monash University). Methods This project will mainly focus on the analysis and reporting of existing data on microenvironmental personal RF-EMF exposures collected from 36 microenvironments from Melbourne and Geelong. The collection of RF-EMF exposure data from each microenvironment involves undertaking of a walk-through/travel with an ExpoM-RF4 (placed in a waist bag) attached to the hip of the researcher (but not the honours student). The exposure data consists of both root mean square (RMS) and peak electric field intensity levels (V/m) of various radio and telecommunication sources at 32 different frequencies from FM radio (88 MHz) to Wi-Fi (6 GHz), including 5G-new radio (5G-NR) service. 2 Data analysis will involve computation of summary statistics (mean, 25 th , 50 th , 75 th and 95 th percentiles) of personal RF-EMF exposure across the measured (RMS and peak values) bands for all microenvironments. The statistics of personal exposure level for each microenvironment will be calculated in terms of the seven exposure categories (both for RMS and peak values): i) Total, the sum of all measured exposure data across 32 bands, ii) Mobile Phone Base Station Downlink (MPBS DL) exposure, the sum of all 6 DL bands; iii) Mobile Phone Base Station Uplink (MPBS UL) exposure, the sum of all 6 UL bands, iv) Broadcast, the sum of FM radio and DVB- T bands (5 bands), v) Others, the sum of all WLANs, paging bands and ISM (12 bands), vi) Mobile 4G/5G (2.3 GHz), and, viii) Mobile 5G-NR (3.5 GHz). Further, data of each microenvironment type will be combined to compare their respective exposure levels and associated RF-EMF sources. From the pooled median data (of 9 microenvironment types in each city), the summary statistics will be calculated to compare and characterize RF-EMF exposure levels and sources in Melbourne and Geelong. Similarly, ana analysis of correlation will be undertaken to evaluate how RMS exposure levels across different microenvironments correlate with peak exposure levels.