Cell phones are becoming the only home phones in an increasing number of U.S. households, a trend intensified by challenging economic conditions, according to a report released Wednesday from the National Center for Health Statistics.

More than one in four U.S. homes, or 26.6 percent, had only a wireless phone as of June 2010, up from 13.6 percent in 2007. And the percentage of wireless-only homes increased in every state, ranging from 35.2 percent in Arkansas to 12.8 percent in Rhode Island and New Jersey.

"The phrase 'home telephone number' is going the way of rotary dial phones," says Stephen Blumberg of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. The trend toward wireless-only homes shows no sign of slowing, it said.

That more people will be using cell phones more frequently "poses an even greater sense of urgency to conduct studies to try to determine whether there are or there are not ill effects from the use of cell phones to the brain," says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and author of a recent study on phones' radiation emissions. "The reality is (phones are) widely utilized, and yet we have minimal information."

Low-income homes and those in poverty are more likely to be wireless-only, according to the researchers, who used data from tens of thousands of respondents to the National Health Interview Survey and the Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey in tracking the state and national trend. "States such as Arkansas, Mississippi and Kentucky have a higher proportion of households living with low income," Blumberg says, "and giving up a land line is one way to save money."

Renters are also more likely to have wireless-only households. "That is the reason we see states such as North Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska and Oklahoma near the...

2011-04-22 21:10:10