Average Accumulated Radiation Doses for Global Nuclear Workers: Low Doses, Low Effects, and Comparison with Doses for Medical Radiologists.

Koterov, A. N.; Tukov, A. R.; Ushenkova, L. N.; Kalinina, M. V.; Biryukov, A. P.

A synthetic study was carried out to assess the average external exposure dose accumulated over the entire period of employment by nuclear workers as a world professional category (1946–2010). The average (mean) and median doses for a sample of 63 variants (18 countries; cohorts of various nuclear installations, including international groups) were 31.1 and 24.0 mSv, respectively. The values after processing the sample for outliers (up to 52 variants) decreased to 21.7 and 20.7 mSv. Whatever values are taken into account, they are below the limit of low doses of radiation with low LET (up to 0.1 Gy/Sv) and, on average for the group, should not lead to any tissue (deterministic) effects. Estimation of the cancer mortality rate at the doses received in terms of excess relative risk (ERR) per 1 Gy (based, for example, on the value for a pooled cohort of 15 countries) [Cardis et al., 2005] gave values that cannot be detected against the background of carcinogenic effects of nonradiation factors, confounders, and biases. Thus, the expected increase in the number of deaths from cancer over ten years was only 0.036–0.06% of the size of the study group. The obtained values of the average doses for nuclear workers were compared with those for medical radiologists (combined values for studies from seven countries; mainly the 1950s and up to 2000), which amounted to 62.9 and 61.9 mSv for the mean and median, respectively. The average dose received for medical radiologists is thus 2–3 times higher than that for nuclear workers. Although the contribution of incorporated radionuclides to the radiation dose for the second group was not considered, the discovered fact can have an effect on the formation of a relatively favorable image of employment in the nuclear power industry.

GLOBAL radiation; RADIATION doses; RADIOLOGISTS; GAMMA rays; NUCLEAR facilities; EXPOSURE dose; NUCLEAR industry; RADIATION dosimetry

Biology Bulletin, 2022, Vol 49, Issue 12, p2475

1062-3590

Academic Journal

10.1134/S106235902212007X