Exposure to microwave radiation has no impact on the global sleep quality of people living in the vicinity of base transceiver stations

Abstract

Occupational exposure to microwave radiation (MWR) has become an inevi-table part of life. Therefore, it is essential to assess the MWR effect on hu-man health. In this study, we examined the non-thermal effect of MWR from base transceiver station (BTS) on humans' sleep quality. Total 1150 partici-pants of different zones based on distance from BTS (145 from inter-tower/zone A; 256 from 0-150m/zone B; 241 from 150-300m/zone C, 381 from 300-500m/zone D), and 127 controls from the area without BTS installations were included. We recorded the electric field strength at the subject’s resi-dence using NBM-550 equipped with probe EF0-391. We assessed the sub-jects' sleep quality by administering the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Ques-tionnaire. ANOVA revealed statistically significantly higher electric-field strength in zone B and zone A. Participants of all the groups exhibited a glob-al PSQI score less than the accepted median score of <5. This implies that subjects of all groups had good sleep quality. However, a more detailed anal-ysis using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that the participants of exposed zones (except zone D), females, and residents of the 1-5y group had decreased sleep quality compared to control, males, and subjects of >5y group, respectively. From the above findings, it can be con-cluded that the MWR had little effect on the sleep quality, but it does modu-late sleep parameters within the accepted range of good sleep quality as a function of the zone, gender, and year of residence. However, extensive studies involving more BTS are desirable to validate the above conclusion.