Assessment of exposure of people to electromagnetic near-fields from telecommunications equipment

Summary form only given. Guidelines on limiting exposure of people to radiation from mobile communication equipment stipulate the highest acceptable rate of electromagnetic energy absorbed by the body per unit body mass (SAR). Compliance with the guidelines requires that the SAR and its distribution in the body be determined to allow comparison with the relevant limit. In practice, the determination of SAR requires knowledge, by measurement or calculation, of the electric field induced in the various body tissues and the electrical properties of the pertinent tissues. At present, there are no standard procedures for SAR measurement and no procedures to certify testing sites. This paper addresses the scientific basis required to deal with these questions and propose procedures to assess the scientific rigour of existing pragmatic solutions. The arguments are supported by results from inter-laboratory studies carried out in four European centres as part of EUREKA cooperative research project (SARSYS)