Study into mobile phone health risks for adolescents

Monash medical researcher Professor Malcolm Sim is part of a major new international study into mobile phone use and brain cancer risk in young people.

Professor Sim, based at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, said the study would assess any potential brain cancer risks associated with the use of mobile phones by children and teenagers.

The five-year study will involve young people aged 10 to 24 who have had a brain cancer as well as people of a similar age who have not, and will recruit participants from Australia, New Zealand, Spain, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Israel and Canada.

Professor Sim said the study would be one of the first in the world that looked at any association between brain tumours and mobile phone use in this age group.

Professor Sim, Director of the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, said previous studies in older adults had returned both positive and negative results relating to a link between mobile phone use and brain cancer.

InterPHONE, a multinational study investigating older adults, had recently been conducted, but pooled results were yet to be published.

Data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority shows that the number of mobile phones in Australia now exceeds the population and world-wide, United Nations figures confirm that one in two people own a mobile phone. Another study conducted by Monash University found that 77 per cent of 11–14 year olds owned a mobile phone.

An occupational physician and epidemiologist, Professor Sim leads a team of 15 research staff, in the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health (MonCOEH).

The research will be funded by the European Union and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Professor Sim and his collaborators from Sydney and Perth received the $693,000 grant as part of the NHMRC-European Union Collaborative Health Research Grants Scheme, which supports Australian participation in international research projects.

(Source: Monash University: February 2009)