Study of anxiety about radiofrequency fields finds knowledge tracks with less worry, awareness with more

October 24, 2026 (EMFS)

Oct 19, 2026 (original)

Source: Bioelectromagnetics

Source category: Research

Bioelectromagnetics has published a study by researchers at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and the University of Osaka on what goes together with anxiety about radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. Across six common sources, both how much exposure participants believed they received and their confidence in that belief were independently linked to anxiety. Awareness of the fields went with more anxiety, objective knowledge of them with less. Providing information raised anxiety overall but lowered it among those who were already highly concerned.

Note: The full text is open access in Europe PMC. The baseline survey drew 4780 responses across Japan in October 2023, and 1940 of those participants returned five weeks later, 965 assigned to the intervention group and 975 to the control group.

The intervention group was given access to a purpose-built website covering four areas: the basic physics of radiofrequency fields, their use in everyday life, possible adverse health effects together with the exposure guidelines, and a FAQ answering 25 common public concerns. It also presented measured field levels from mobile phone base stations, broadcast towers and wireless LAN equipment, taken from a national monitoring project run by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The physics and health-effects material came in a beginner and an intermediate version, and participants chose freely between them.

Quotes

"In the baseline analysis, multilevel modeling of anxiety across six common RF-EMF sources revealed that both subjective exposure perceptions and confidence in those perceptions were independently associated with anxiety."

— Wen et al., Bioelectromagnetics (2026)

"While heightened awareness of RF-EMFs was associated with higher anxiety, more objective knowledge of RF-EMFs was associated with lower anxiety."

— Wen et al., Bioelectromagnetics (2026)

"In the intervention analysis, although information provision increased anxiety overall, it reduced anxiety among those with initially high levels of concern."

— Wen et al., Bioelectromagnetics (2026)

Location

📍 Japan

Source

Does Knowing More Relate to More Anxiety? Psychological Factors Associated With Anxiety About Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields and the Role of Information Provision in Risk Communication pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

📄 Underlying Research

Does Knowing More Relate to More Anxiety? Psychological Factors Associated With Anxiety About Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields and the Role of Information Provision in Risk Communication

Wen R, Yamaguchi-Sekino S, Taki M, Onishi T, Murakami M (2026) Bioelectromagnetics Journal Level 1ⓘ

🔗 DOI 📰 Full Article

Study of anxiety about radiofrequency fields finds knowledge tracks with less worry, awareness with more

Source

📄 Underlying Research

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