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A Review of the Radiological Assessments Corporation's Fernald Dose Reconstruction Report (1997) / Chapter Skim
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DOSE ESTIMATES
Pages 15-18

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From page 15...
... The committee makes the following recommendations regarding the dose comparison. First, the methods used to calculate lung doses from radon decay products and Dom other sources must be consistent for the dose comparison to be meaningful.
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From page 16...
... The sources of uncertainty include the need to estimate critical parameters in the modeling process when data are scarce or not available; the need to extrapolate observations made at one time to other times for which necessary data are absent; the need to assess the reliability of indiv~dual-specific information on lifestyle and residence, for example, in translating estimates of health risk from one population to another to which the risks might not be fully applicable; and the need to allow for the approximate nature of mathematical models of complex physical and biologic processes. Identification of those sources of uncertainty and estimation of their possible ejects on the results of a dose reconstruction make up what is referred to as uncertainty analysis.
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From page 17...
... Physiologic factors would also contribute uncertainty: variations in breathing rates, lung size, and particle-expulsion efficiency; variations in absorption, metabolism, and retention times of radionuclides; and so on. Although the RAC report considers only the 9 hypothetical "representative" persons with fixed characteristics, if the doses to the Fernald population are to be modeled realistically, uncertainty estimates have to factor in uncertainties in the assessed or imputed lifestyles and intakes and uncertainties in the dose-conversion factors.
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From page 18...
... , the range of uncertainties is as follows: 5th percentile 95th percentile Statistics 0.59 Dosimetry 0.71 Modeling and smoking 0.5 Other 0 5 Combined 0.33 I.7 I.4 As mentioned previously, the committee believes that the imputed range of uncertainty for radon dosimetry, given above, is unrealistically narrow. A final comment should be made about why the newer respiratory tract mode} of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP 1994a)
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Key Terms

  • breathing rates
  • decay products
  • dose reconstruction
  • radon decay
  • spent indoors

  • unit dose
  • dose comparison
  • lung doses
  • inhaled radionuclides
  • probably substantially

  • radionuclide contamination
  • thorium include
  • dose uncertainties
  • typically reported
  • directly comparable

  • factors involved
  • respiratory tract
  • main purpose
  • equivalent constant
  • mentioned previously

  • radionuclide intakes
  • lung size
  • approximate nature
  • fixed characteristics
  • international commission

  • uncertainty estimates
  • radionuclides released
  • occurred decades
  • radiological protection
  • retrospective activity


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