Under the parentage of ITU-T Study Group 5, a workshop on Human exposure to electromagnetic fields will be held on 20 November 2007 at the ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

The rapid development of radiocommunication and telecommunication services in which exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) is an issue, is of interest to the general public, regulatory agencies, standards organizations and industry. Transmitting antennae are a source of EMF and increasingly need to be placed close to where people live and work in order to support modern telecommunication services. Questions and concerns have been raised and need to be addressed in an appropriate manner. This is a very complex subject and many entities and international standardization organizations are involved, which makes the proper coordination of work very important.

ITU as an organization made-up of administrations, regulators, operators and industry is interested in clarification of and in sharing accurate information on all aspects of the use of radio frequency EMFs in order to secure their safe use in new radiocommunication systems.

The workshop will focus on cooperation and collaboration between organizations involved in the evaluation of human exposure and provides the opportunity to present main tasks and achievements including results of research and real life examples.

The workshop aims to:

• maintain dialogue between the various organizations active within the EMF health effects domain
• increase understanding and alignment, reduce potential duplication of standardization effort
• present methods and approaches used with examples of application in real life
• give support to developing countries in establishing national regulation concerning radiation protection.

The workshop will bring together experts from all over the world to discuss these and other issues.