Cell Phone Use and the Health of Children in the Danish National Birth Cohort

手机使用与丹麦国家出生队列中儿童的健康

• 批准号: 7739336
• 负责人: Leeka Kheifets
• 金额: $ 23.1万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-05 至 2011-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7739336
• 关键词: 7 year old; Address; Adult; Age; Alcohol consumption; Algorithms; Anatomy; Anxiety; Area; Attention; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Auditory; Autistic Disorder; Behavior Disorders; Behavioral; Birth; Birth Weight; Breast Feeding; Cellular Phone; Cerebral Palsy; Child; Child Behavior; Child health care; Childhood; Clinical; Code; Collecting Cell; Communication; Data; Data Collection; Data Sources; Demography; Denmark; Depressive disorder; Development; Diagnosis; Diet Habits; Disease; Disease Outcome; Distress; Drug or chemical Tissue Distribution; Economics; Electromagnetic Fields; Emotional; Environment; Environmental Exposure; Epilepsy; Evaluation; Evaluation Reports; Exposure to; Family; Frequencies; Funding; Future; Gestational Age; Gilles de la Tourette syndrome; Head; Health; Home environment; Hyperactive behavior; Impairment; Incidence; Individual; International; Investigation; Ionizing radiation; Knowledge; Late Effects; Lead; Life; Link; Marital Status; Measures; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Migraine; Mission; Mothers; National Children' s Study; Nervous system structure; Neuraxis; Organ; Outcome; Parents; Pattern; Penetration; Play; Policy Developments; Population; Population Study; Population-Based Registry; Positioning Attribute; Pregnancy; Problem behavior; Public Health; Publications; Publishing; Questionnaires; Radio; Reaction; Recording of previous events; Records; Relative (related person); Reporting; Research; Research Personnel; Research Proposals; Resources; Rest; Risk; Risk Assessment; Role; Seizures; Shapes; Sleep disturbances; Smoking; Social Conditions; Societies; Source; System; Technology; Telephone; Time; Tissues; Tobacco smoke; Ultraviolet Rays; United States; United States National Academy of Sciences; Update; Visual; Vulnerable Populations; Work; World Health Organization; absorption; cohort; cost; environmental agent; follow-up; forgetting; inattention; lifestyle factors; neuropsychiatry; novel; policy implication; premature; prospective; public health relevance; radiofrequency; social; stem; time interval; tool; trend; young mother

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): With the rapid advances in communication technologies, children are increasingly exposed to the radiofrequency (RF) fields starting from a very early age. As cellular telephones are a new, but increasingly common source of a relatively high RF fields, concerns are increasing that this technology could have negative health effects. Investigation need to be initiated immediately while there are still some populations with no or low exposure. In line with the NIEHS's mission to promote the public's right to a healthy environment, the aim of this proposed research is to understand whether exposure to cellular telephones in childhood can have effects on the central nervous system and whether children might be particularly at risk. The Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC) represents a unique resource, which will allow us to efficiently evaluate whether exposures [in children] lead to behavioral and developmental effects. The cohort consists of over 100,000 Danish children, who were born between 1996 and 2002. Detailed information on lifestyle factors, dietary habits and environmental exposures has been collected. When these children reached the age of seven, we began to ask about current use of cell phones by children. Our results among 10% of the children suggest that cell phone exposure might be related to behavioral and developmental problems. These findings need to be replicated for the rest of the cohort, [and to evaluate if our findings are limited to "early users", who might be different from the rest of the population. Also, several additional potential confounders have been suggested, and we plan re-analysis adjusting for these factors.] We also propose to investigate other central-nervous system-related outcomes such as seizures, autism, migraines, and sleep disturbances. The proposed novel project is the first large scale study to examine health effects of cell phone use early in life. Given that there are over two billion subscribers worldwide and that children are beginning to use cell phones at earlier ages, studies of children have been determined to be of the highest priority by both national and international organizations, including the World Health Organization and National Academy of Sciences. Children may be at greater risk because: 1) their exposure to the RF might be higher due to differences in the anatomy, tissue conductivity and other factors; 2) they might be more susceptible due to the developing organ and tissue systems, particularly of the nervous system; and 3) children born in the last decade are part of a unique population that will have lifelong cell phone exposure. [Our preliminary results have results have received a widespread scientific and media attention. Several issues have been raised post publication.] Here we propose to address these issues and thus to significantly advance our knowledge on health effects of RF field exposure in a potentially vulnerable population and contribute to the risk assessment and policy development of this ubiquitous and rapidly increasing exposure. We believe such a study is urgently needed and at present it can only be done using data sources outside the U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: To date potential health effects of cell phone use [in children] have not been adequately examined. As this exposure is extremely prevalent, even very small effects of cell phone exposure could have a large public health impact. [We have reported an important result which needs replication: further information will have immediate policy implications.] If our findings are confirmed reducing exposure in this very vulnerable population is easily achievable.

描述（由申请人提供）：随着通信技术的迅速发展，儿童越来越接触从很小的时候开始的射频（RF）领域。由于蜂窝电话是一个相对较高的RF领域的新的，但日益普遍的来源，因此担心该技术可能会产生负面影响。需要立即开始调查，而仍然存在一些没有或低暴露的人群。根据NIEHS促进公众对健康环境的权利的使命，这项拟议的研究的目的是了解童年时期对蜂窝电话的接触是否会对中枢神经系统产生影响，以及儿童是否特别有风险。丹麦国家出生队列（DNBC）代表了一种独特的资源，这将使我们能够有效评估[儿童中]暴露是否会导致行为和发育效果。该队列由100,000多名丹麦儿童组成，他们出生于1996年至2002年之间。已经收集了有关生活方式因素，饮食习惯和环境暴露的详细信息。当这些孩子七岁时，我们开始询问儿童目前使用手机的情况。我们在10％的孩子中的结果表明，手机接触可能与行为和发育问题有关。这些发现需要在其余的队列中复制，[评估我们的发现是否仅限于“早期用户”，后者可能与其他人口不同。此外，已经提出了一些其他潜在的混杂因素，我们计划对这些因素进行重新分析。]我们还建议调查其他中枢性系统相关的结果，例如癫痫发作，自闭症，偏头痛和睡眠障碍。拟议中的新型项目是第一项大规模研究，旨在检查生活早期手机使用的健康影响。鉴于全球有超过20亿个订阅者，并且儿童开始使用早期手机，因此对儿童的研究已被国家和国际组织（包括世界卫生组织和美国国家科学院）确定为最高优先级。儿童可能面临更大的风险，因为：1）由于解剖学，组织电导率和其他因素的差异，他们接触RF的风险可能更高； 2）由于发育中的器官和组织系统，特别是神经系统，它们可能更容易受到影响； 3）过去十年中出生的孩子是独特人群的一部分，这些人将终生曝光。 [我们的初步结果已经获得了广泛的科学和媒体关注。出版物发布后已经提出了一些问题。]我们在这里提出解决这些问题，从而大大提高我们对潜在脆弱人群中RF现场暴露的健康影响的了解，并有助于这种无处不在且迅速增加的风险评估和政策发展。我们认为，迫切需要进行这样的研究，目前只能使用美国公共卫生相关性以外的数据来源进行：迄今为止使用手机使用的潜在健康影响（在儿童中）尚未得到充分检查。由于这种暴露非常普遍，即使是手机暴露的影响也很小，公共卫生的影响也可能很大。 [我们报道了需要复制的重要结果：进一步的信息将具有直接的政策影响。