Common basis for health risk assessment and safety decision-making concerning exposure to ionising radiation and other sources of harm

Abstract

Abstract.To meet the growing practical need in risk analysis in Russia health risk assessment tools and regulations have been developed in the frame of few federal research programs. One of the objectives and directions of this development is to produce common, unified basis of health risk analysis for different sources of risk. A specific risk index ℜ has been proposed for safety decision-making (establishing safety standards and other levels of protective actions, comparison of various sources of risk, etc.). The index ℜ is defined as the partial mathematical expectation of lost years of healthy life (LLE) due to exposure during a year to a risk source considered. The more concrete determinations of this index for different risk sources derived from the common definition of ℜ are given. Generic safety standards (GSS) for the public and occupational workers have been suggested in terms of this index. Secondary specific safety standards have been derived from GSS for ionising radiation and a number of other risk sources including environmental chemical pollutants. Other general and derived levels for decision-making have also been proposed including the "de-minimus" level. Some examples of risk comparison are demonstrated in the frame of different comparison tasks.