The 'Mainzer EMF-Wachhund': results from a watchdog project on self-reported health complaints attributed to exposure to electromagnetic fields
Autor: | Stephan Letzel, Wilfred Nix, Renate Kimbel, Joachim Schüz, Lutz Vollrath, Lutz G. Schmidt, Bernd Jansen, Ulrich T. Egle, Christian Petters |
---|---|
Rok vydání: | 2006 |
Předmět: |
Adult
Male Self-Assessment medicine.medical_specialty Adolescent Physiology Health Status Population Biophysics Electromagnetic hypersensitivity Electromagnetic Fields Germany Surveys and Questionnaires medicine Humans Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging Child education education.field_of_study business.industry Infant Newborn Infant General Medicine Middle Aged Child Preschool Family medicine Female medicine.symptom business |
Zdroj: | Bioelectromagnetics. 27:280-287 |
ISSN: | 1521-186X 0197-8462 |
Popis: | The "Mainzer EMF-Wachhund," a watchdog project, offered a system of self-notification of health complaints attributed to exposures to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) to a population of a part of Germany with about 4 million inhabitants. By using a self-administered questionnaire, which was provided online and for download from the Internet, 192 persons reported such health complaints in the period from October 2003 to March 2005. Of these, 56% classified themselves as electromagnetic hypersensitive (EH). Predictors of this self classification were being affected by all kinds of EMF rather than single EMF sources and being female. On average, EH subjects reported a high degree of suffering, 77% of whom had already sought advice from physicians. An Internet-based standardized questionnaire is an economic way of offering affected persons a direct link to scientific institutions to establish contact. However, the study base obtained by such an approach is not representative to estimate a population-based prevalence. As a large number of subjects did not classify themselves as EH and reported very specific links between exposure and symptoms, they may provide a very distinct and interesting group for future research. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
Externí odkaz: |