Assessment of occupational exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields in hospital personnel

Abstract

It has been proposed that chronic exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields (MF) in occupational environments could represent a risk factor for a number of disorders. Medical and technical workers in hospitals have been reported to be exposed to relatively strong ELF fields. The present work aims to characterize exposure to MF in the 5 Hz to 2 kHz frequency range in a large hospital through both instantaneous environmental measurements and personal monitoring of workers. The study was conducted in different working environments of a hospital with about 4400 employees, many of them working at two or more different work stations and consequently, exposed to MF levels that were expected to be unevenly distributed in space and time. The results indicate that: (1) The dominant frequency at the studied environments was 50 Hz (average 90.8 ± 6% of the total B value); (2) The best descriptive information on a worker's exposure is obtained from personal monitoring of volunteer workers; (3) The arithmetic averages of exposure levels obtained from the monitoring ranged from 0.03 ± 0.01 µT in nurses to 0.39 ± 0.13 µT in physiotherapists; and (4) The description of the MF environment through spot measurements in the workplace, although coherent with the data from personal monitoring, might not adequately estimate MF exposure in some professional categories.

Patient exposure to extremely low‐frequency magnetic fields during laparoscopic and robotic surgeries

“…Ubeda et al . reported that the mean exposure levels obtained from spot measurements ranged from a minimum of 0.03 ± 0.01 μT in nurses to a maximum of 0.39 ± 0.13 μT in physiotherapists in a study that also included surgeons, physicians, and radiologists . Our previous study reported that the mean ELF‐MF exposure of endodontic personnel during working hours was 0.03 ± 0.04 μT .…”

“…Moreover, the patients' mean ELF‐MF exposure levels were no different between the laparoscopic and robotic surgeries and were approximately same as the mean ELF‐MF exposure level of 0.11 μT in homes in North America . Previous studies reported a mean strength of ELF‐MFs ranging from 0.03 μT to 0.58 μT in various hospital locations .…”

Assessment of daily exposure of endodontic personnel to extremely low frequency magnetic fields

“…Table 2 shows the mean MF exposure levels of medical workers according to other studies (Roh et al. 2009, Úbeda et al. 2011) as well as those of the endodontic trainee and hygienists measured in this study.…”

“…2009). The averages of exposure levels obtained from spot measurements ranged from 0.03 ± 0.01 μT (minimum) in nurses to 0.39 ± 0.13 μT (maximum) in physiotherapists in a study that also included surgeons, physicians and radiologists (Úbeda et al. 2011).…”

General public and workers exposure to high-frequency electric fields in Spanish hospitals

“…Another factor to be considered is the environment: areas where the general public and hospital personnel are exposed have to be selected. Some authors analyzed the exposure of healthcare workers to low-frequency radiation [8][9][10] . In our case, we are aiming at highfrequency radiation, so their results in terms of the more exposed areas are not directly applicable.…”