This exposure assessment measured environmental and auto-induced RF-EMF across more than 800 microenvironments in ten European countries, with a focus on 5G-related bands. Non-user environmental exposure was reported to be below international guideline values and similar to prior European research, while induced traffic substantially increased measured exposure, especially in uplink scenarios. The study also reports systematic differences by setting (cities vs villages) and by national precautionary limit policies.

This exposure assessment study introduces a cost-efficient add-on sensor attached to a smartphone to quantify auto-induced uplink RF-EMF transmission across 100–6000 MHz in multiple microenvironments. Activity-based surveys were conducted in seven European countries under non-user, maximum downlink, and maximum uplink scenarios. Reported power levels were lowest for non-user scenarios and higher during active use, with variation by country, urbanization, and setting. The authors frame the work as supporting future epidemiological research and planned validation against other tools.