Abstract

Although WiFi contributes little to total radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure in our everyday environment, concern has raised whether this specific type of modulated RF-EMF causes health problems. The aim of this review is to evaluate all types of studies that investigated biological and health effects of WiFi exposure and fulfilled basic quality criteria. Eligible for inclusion were epidemiological, human experimental, in vivo and in vitro studies using realistic WiFi exposure settings. We conducted a systematic literature search for all papers published between January 1997 and August 2020 followed by a quality review addressing blinding and dosimetry in experimental studies and various types of biases in epidemiological studies. All studies fulfilling the quality criteria were descriptively summarized in terms of observation or absence of associations. From 1385 articles identified by the literature search, 23 fulfilled basic quality criteria: 6 epidemiological papers, 6 human experimental articles, 9 in vivo articles, and 2 in vitro articles. Whereas in vivo and in vitro studies applied exposure levels up to 4 W/kg, human studies dealt with exposure levels several orders of magnitude below the ICNIRP guidelines, which are typical for WiFi exposure situations in the everyday environment. Numerous outcomes ranging from biological markers to symptoms were mostly found not to be associated with WiFi exposure. Sporadic findings were not consistent in terms of outcomes or exposure-response associations. This review based on a systematic literature search and quality evaluation does not suggest detrimental health effects from WiFi exposure below regulatory limits.

摘要

尽管 WiFi 对我们日常环境中的总射频电磁场 (RF-EMF) 暴露贡献很小，但人们担心这种特定类型的调制 RF-EMF 是否会导致健康问题。本次审查的目的是评估所有类型的研究，这些研究调查了 WiFi 暴露的生物和健康影响并满足基本质量标准。符合纳入条件的是流行病学、人体实验、体内和体外使用真实的 WiFi 暴露设置进行研究。我们对 1997 年 1 月至 2020 年 8 月期间发表的所有论文进行了系统的文献检索，然后对实验研究中的盲法和剂量测定以及流行病学研究中的各种类型的偏差进行了质量审查。所有符合质量标准的研究都在观察或缺乏关联方面进行了描述性总结。从文献检索确定的 1385 篇文章中，有 23 篇符合基本质量标准：6 篇流行病学论文、6 篇人体实验文章、9 篇体内文章和 2篇体外文章。而在体内和体外研究应用了高达 4 W/kg 的暴露水平，人类研究处理的暴露水平比 ICNIRP 指南低几个数量级，这是日常环境中 WiFi 暴露情况的典型情况。从生物标志物到症状的许多结果大多被发现与 WiFi 暴露无关。零星的发现在结果或暴露反应关联方面不一致。本综述基于系统的文献检索和质量评估，并未表明低于监管限制的 WiFi 暴露对健康产生不利影响。