Authored By:
Farashi et al.This systematic review and meta‑analysis, which included 30 eligible studies, assessed the relationship between exposure to mobile phone radiofrequency (RF) radiation and headaches in humans. The results showed that RF exposure from mobile phone base stations was not associated with headache, with Odds ratio (OR) of 1.14 (95% CI 0.75, 1.52). However, the authors did report that RF radiation emitted from mobile phones was associated with headaches, OR = 1.30 (95% CI 1.21–1.39). This risk was similar for younger people and adults and also for longer or shorter durations of mobile phone use. The authors concluded that RF radiation from mobile phones was associated with headaches.
Published In:
International Archives of Occupational and Environmental HealthOverall, this study reports that exposure to mobile phone RF radiation increases the risk of headache by up to 41%. Though the finding is in line with that of a previous systematic review and meta-analysis report (Wang et al., 2017), the results of these systematic reviews and meta-analyses should be interpretated cautiously. For example, the latest report only included three good quality studies, whereas most of the other included studies were either poor or fair quality. The quality of the study is also related to how well RF exposure to mobile phone was measured (e.g., self-reported vs quantitatively measured) and/or whether or not potential confounders were accounted for. For example, almost all studies included in the report employed self-reported RF exposure, which is only a substitute measure of actual RF exposure and hence likely to be inaccurate. The self-reported data on mobile phone use employed by most of these studies generally gives rise to error (i.e., recall bias) in RF exposure estimation. This, together with possible confounders unadjusted for in the studies, affects the potential relationship between mobile phone RF exposure and headache. These important methodological issues indicate that the review and meta-analysis process was not of good quality and likely resulted in providing biased findings.
It is the assessment of ARPANSA and international organisations such as The World Health Organisation (WHO) and The International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation (ICNIRP) that there is no established scientific evidence to support that RF exposure when using a mobile phone causes headache.
