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Does apartment’s distance to an in-built transformer room predict magnetic field exposure levels?

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 23, pages 554–558 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

It has been shown that magnetic field exposure in apartments located directly on top or adjacent to transformer rooms is higher compared with exposure in apartments located further away from the transformer rooms. It is unclear whether this also translates into exposure contrast among individuals living in these apartments. We performed spot measurements of magnetic fields in 35 apartments in 14 apartment buildings with an in-built transformer and additionally performed 24-h personal measurements in a subsample of 24 individuals. Apartments placed directly on top of or adjacent to a transformer room had on average exposures of 0.42 μT, apartments on the second floor on top of a transformer room, or sharing a corner or edge with the transformer room had 0.11 μT, and apartments located further away from the transformer room had levels of 0.06 μT. Personal exposure levels were approximately a factor 2 lower compared with apartment averages, but still showed exposure contrasts, but only for those individuals who live in the apartments directly on top or adjacent to a transformer room compared with those living further away, with 0.23 versus 0.06 μT for personal exposure when indoors, respectively. A classification of individuals into ‘high’ and ‘low’ exposed based on the location of their apartment within a building with an in-built transformer is possible and could be applied in future epidemiological studies.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by The Netherlands Organization for Health Research (ZonMW) within the program Electromagnetic Fields and Health Research under grant numbers 85500006 and 85800001, and performed in collaboration with the international TransExpo study group. We thank Gabor Mezei and Leeka Kheifets for input and for providing us with the measurement protocol of the TransExpo study. We also thank Mathieu Pruppers and Gert Kelfkens from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) for help with setting up the study. We are especially grateful to the electricity companies for their helpful assistance in giving us access to transformer rooms for measurements, and for performing the load measurements of the transformers.

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  1. Roel Vermeulen and Hans Kromhout: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Anke Huss, Kelly Goris, Roel Vermeulen & Hans Kromhout

  2. Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Anke Huss

  3. Julius Centre for Public Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Roel Vermeulen

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  1. Anke Huss
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Correspondence to Anke Huss.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on this Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology website

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Huss, A., Goris, K., Vermeulen, R. et al. Does apartment’s distance to an in-built transformer room predict magnetic field exposure levels?. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 23, 554–558 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2012.130

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