Foster Kenneth R, Ziskin Marvin C, Balzano Quirino
Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Department of Radiology, Temple University Medical School, Philadelphia, PA 19140, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Feb 12;19(4):2067. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19042067.
This commentary, by three authors with an aggregate experience of more than a century in technology and health and safety studies concerning radiofrequency (RF) energy, asks what has been learned over the past 75 years of research on radiofrequency and health, focusing on technologies for exposure assessment and dosimetry. Research programs on health and safety of RF exposure began in the 1950s, initially motivated by occupational health concerns for military personnel, and later to address public concerns about exposures to RF energy from environmental sources and near-field exposures from RF transmitting devices such as mobile phones that are used near the body. While this research largely focused on the biological effects of RF energy, it also led to important improvements in exposure assessment and dosimetry. This work in the aggregate has made RF energy one of the best studied potential technological hazards and represents a productive response by large numbers of scientists and engineers, working in many countries and supported by diverse funding agencies, to the ever rapidly evolving uses of the electromagnetic spectrum. This review comments on present needs of the field, which include raising the quality of dosimetry in many RF bioeffects studies and developing improved exposure/dosimetric techniques for the higher microwave frequencies to be used by forthcoming communications technologies. At present, however, the major uncertainties in dosimetric modeling/exposure assessment are likely to be related to the inherent variability in real-world exposures, rather than imprecision in measurement technologies.
这篇评论文章由三位在射频（RF）能量的技术以及健康与安全研究方面有着超过一个世纪综合经验的作者撰写，探讨了在过去75年关于射频与健康的研究中我们学到了什么，重点关注暴露评估和剂量测定技术。关于射频暴露的健康与安全研究项目始于20世纪50年代，最初是出于对军事人员职业健康的担忧，后来是为了解决公众对来自环境源的射频能量暴露以及来自如在身体附近使用的手机等射频发射设备的近场暴露的担忧。虽然这项研究主要集中在射频能量的生物效应上，但它也在暴露评估和剂量测定方面带来了重要改进。总体而言，这项工作使射频能量成为研究最充分的潜在技术危害之一，并且代表了众多科学家和工程师在许多国家开展工作并得到不同资助机构支持，对电磁频谱不断快速演变的用途所做出的富有成效的回应。这篇综述评论了该领域目前的需求，其中包括提高许多射频生物效应研究中剂量测定的质量，以及为即将到来的通信技术所使用的更高微波频率开发改进的暴露/剂量测定技术。然而目前，剂量测定建模/暴露评估中的主要不确定性可能与现实世界暴露中的固有变异性有关，而非测量技术的不精确性。
