Study makes call on health issues

The cohort study on mobile communications (COSMOS) forms part of the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme. The international study will run for 20-30 years and will follow the health of at least 250,000 participants aged 18-69 in five European countries. The UK arm of COSMOS is being led by a research team from Imperial College London.

There are currently more than six billion mobile phone devices in use worldwide, with more than 70 million in use in the UK, which has a population of 61 million.

Studies of short-term use of mobile phones and health have been reassuring. However, there are still some uncertainties about the health effects of mobile phone use, since some diseases take many years to develop and so far few people have been using mobile phones for that period of time.

Dr Mireille Toledano, co-principal investigator of the study from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: ’For the benefit of current users and for future generations, it is important for us to carry out long-term health monitoring of a large group of mobile phone users so that we can identify if there are any possible health effects from this new and widespread technology that has become so central to our everyday lives.’