Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea.
Institute for Environmental Health, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Oct 1;17(19):7207. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17197207.
This study examines differences between the level of objective knowledge regarding radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) and risk perception of cell phones in Korea. We also investigate the extent to which socio-demographic factors, perceived EMF exposure, objective knowledge regarding EMF, and psychological factors influence the risk perception of cell phones using hierarchical multiple regression. All 3393 study subjects completed a survey measuring the degree of risk perception of EMF. They were sampled in accordance with representative proportions of sex, age group, and region of residence as shown in the 2019 Resident Registration Population Statistics reported by Korea. The variables that have the most influence on risk perception of cell phones can be induced from the beta values for each variable: The subjective factor, perceived level of exposure to EMF (β = 0.253), was more strongly related to risk perception of cell phones than level of knowledge regarding EMF, an objective factor in this study. Of the psychological factors, Dreadfulness (β = 0.331), Personal knowledge (β = -174), and Familiarity (β = -089) influenced risk perceptions of cell phones; Controllability did not. On the risk cognition map, people though that it was easy to control risk related to Cell phone use in daily life, while risk related to High technology was uncontrollable.
本研究考察了韩国射频电磁场 (RF-EMF) 客观知识水平与手机风险感知之间的差异。我们还使用分层多元回归调查了社会人口因素、感知的 EMF 暴露、EMF 客观知识以及心理因素对手机风险感知的影响程度。所有 3393 名研究对象都完成了一项测量 EMF 风险感知程度的调查。他们是按照 2019 年韩国居民登记人口统计报告中显示的性别、年龄组和居住地区的代表性比例抽取的样本。从每个变量的β值可以推断出对手机风险感知影响最大的变量：主观因素，即感知到的 EMF 暴露水平（β=0.253），比本研究中的客观因素，即对 EMF 的知识水平，与手机风险感知的关系更为密切。在心理因素中，恐惧（β=0.331）、个人知识（β=-174）和熟悉度（β=-0.089）影响了手机风险感知；可控制性没有影响。在风险认知图上，人们认为日常生活中使用手机相关的风险是可以控制的，而与高科技相关的风险是不可控的。
