Chapter 14 - Radiological Assessment and Its Application to Dose Reconstruction

Abstract

This chapter discusses the methods of radiological assessment that are used to reconstruct doses received by individuals when exposure has occurred several decades ago. The bulk of the chapter addresses recent dose reconstructions for residents in the vicinity of some of the major facilities of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The practice of dose reconstruction has a much longer history. Perhaps the first such effort was by R. D. Evans, who in the 1930s estimated the doses delivered to the skeletons of radium dial painters, based on the rate at which radon is eliminated in the expired breath of individuals who have accumulated skeletal deposits of radium. One of the most complicated efforts at dose reconstruction has been undertaken over a long period of time in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where estimates of the doses received by all survivors of the World War II atomic bombings have been made. Another monumental effort was required to estimate the doses received by about 220,000 military personnel who participated in the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. Dose reconstruction on a large scale has also been conducted for the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and for residents near the weapons testing site in Nevada.