All of them were equipped with personal dosimeters for 24 hours. This value is a thousand times lower that the standard limit of 100 T for the public and 200 times lower than the 500 T exposure limit for workers. Furthermore, the exposure of people living in the centres of cities showed that there are no drastic differences in exposure between life in rural areas and life in the city. Even the exposure of people living in the vicinity of high voltage power lines differs very little from the average exposure in the population. Background electromagnetic field levels in the home are mainly caused by the transmission and distribution facilities for electricity or by electrical appliances.
Electrical appliances differ greatly in the strength of fields they generate.
Both electric and magnetic field levels decrease rapidly with distance from the appliances. In any event, fields surrounding household appliances usually are far below guideline limits. At operator positions the electric and magnetic fields of television sets and computer screens are hundreds of thousands times below guideline levels. Microwave ovens meeting the standards are not hazardous to health. As long as close public access to radar facilities, broadcasting antennas and mobile phone base stations is restricted, exposure guideline limits for radiofrequency fields will not be exceeded.