Frontiers in Public Health has published a third paper from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (LMU) group on EMF risk perception, analysing the same 2024 survey of 1,053 German school teachers and 329 nursery school teachers to ask which factors go together with high concern. About a third of participants believed that some individuals develop adverse health effects from EMF exposure below legal limits. It follows the group's analysis of German GPs and paediatricians from March and the descriptive teacher survey from June.
A higher score on the study's conspiracy belief scale was the strongest correlate of high EMF risk perception, with odds ratios of 2.87 among school teachers and 2.88 among nursery teachers, and it survived adjustment for technology acceptance and media health literacy. Both of those, and trust in bodies including the WHO, Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection and science in general, tracked lower risk perception, and media health literacy lost its association once the others were accounted for. The authors stress that the cross-sectional design cannot establish cause and effect (meaning, a high score on the 'conspiracy belief' scale could have led these teachers to their EMF concern, but the reverse is just as possible, that the EMF concern came first and made them more receptive to conspiracy thinking. Also, some other unmeasured factor could be underlying both the teacher's EMF concern and their 'conspiracy belief').
Quotes
"The most striking finding was that among both school and nursery teachers, conspiracy belief was associated with EMF risk perception, even after adjustment for technology acceptance and media health literacy."
"In addition, also trust in (health) authorities like the WHO, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, the Federal government or science itself were associated with risk perception towards EMF. As trust in this regard increased, the perception of EMF risk declined."
"On the other hand, however, an information-based approach may fall short if trust in state actors and scientific institutions is low or non-existent."
"It is also important to mention that due to the cross-sectional study design the observed associations do not necessarily imply a cause-and-effect relationship."
"Since school and nursery school teachers play a key role as multipliers of health-related information, it is of crucial importance for public health that these professional groups are able to convey precise scientific knowledge regarding potential health risks, including those possibly related to environmental factors like EMF."
Location
📍 Germany
Factors associated with risk perception among school and nursery school teachers concerning potential health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields
Lüthy K, Riesmeyer C, Kühn J, Blättermann E, Forster F, Radon K, Weinmann T (2026) Frontiers in Public Health Journal Level 1ⓘ
