The Impact of Information and Communication Factors on Mitigation of Workers' Health in the Chernobyl Zone, 1986–1990

Abstract

Several important features of the Chernobyl disaster make it an outstanding event among the industrial accidents in the world s history. We want to draw the readers attention to three of them: 1) Chernobyl involved severe occupational injuries and caused chronic disorders in an unprecedented number of mitigation workers; 2) the health problems in question cannot be attributed solely to the specific radiation injury in the zone 1 ; and 3) the Chernobyl disaster has been a unique communication (media, in particular) event in terms of its international coverage, impact, and the controversies it has generated. The purpose of this article is to trace the links between these peculiarities of the accident and to suggest a framework for relating the communication and information factors to the health condition of the people who were occupationally involved in the Chernobyl disaster mitigation. We also will propose a number of ideas about how the factors in question can be managed within the Chernobyl disaster mitigation policy, which at present is critically shaped by the post-Soviet political, economic, and cultural context.