Article publication date
February 2023
Authored by
Freudenstein et al.
Summary
This study assessed the effects of generalisation descriptions on risk perception of radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF EMF) sources. The study tested 629 participants, who were randomly allocated into three groups. Group G1 received an excerpt of an original press release from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) implying that all RF EMF sources are possibly carcinogenic to humans (i.e., strong generalization); Group G2 received the original press release and an additional explanatory text module informing that the IARC risk assessment refers only to mobile phones (i.e., weak generalization); and Group G3 received rewritten text using the phrase ‘RF EMF from mobile phones’ whenever ‘RF EMF’ was mentioned in the IARC press release (i.e., weak generalisation). Participants’ risk perceptions regarding mobile phones and other sources of EMF were measured before and after the reading of the text. Further, the degree to which the participants generalised mobile phone-related EMF to other RF EMF exposures was evaluated to determine whether this was predictive of their post-text risk perceptions.
The study found that all three groups showed an increased risk perception for EMF sources after reading the presented texts. Respondents reporting a strong risk generalisation belief showed significantly higher risk perceptions for all tested EMF sources (except mobile phones) than subjects with a weak risk generalisation belief. The higher the general risk perception, the more people are inclined to generalise the cancer risk across all EMF sources.
Link to
Effects of generalization descriptions on risk perception
Published in
Environmental Research
Commentary by ARPANSA
This study demonstrates that risk generalisation belief affects the risk perception of RF EMF exposure sources, which is consistent with what has been previously reported (Pradhan et al., 2022). The overall conclusion of the study is that a weak risk generalisation belief (i.e., that the IARC’s RF EMF exposure risk specifically relates to mobile phones) reduces risk perception overall. Consistent with the findings of this study, a previous study conducted in Australia (Zeleke et al., 2019) showed that risk perception for RF EMF exposure was not different among three groups of people who received different levels of information about RF EMF exposure. (Zeleke et al., 2019) also showed that the people who received their personal RF EMF exposure data indicating very low level of exposure (compared to the limits set by the ARPANSA Safety Standard) were more confident about protecting themselves from RF EMF exposure.
Based on the current scientific evidence, it is the assessment of ARPANSA that there is no substantiated evidence that RF EMF exposures at levels below the limits set in the ARPANSA Safety Standard cause any adverse health effects, including cancers in human populations. The World Health Organization is also currently conducting an overall health risk assessment for exposures to RF EMFs in the general and working populations.
