Evaluation of Radon Concentration and the Health Risk in the Offices of the Institute of Science and Technology of the “École Normale Supérieure”, Burkina Faso

Abstract

The second most important cause of lung cancer after smoking is radon gas. Thus, the determination of indoor radon concentrations in residential buildings and workplaces is an important public health concern. The purpose of this research was to measure the concentration of radon gas in the offices of the Institute of Science and Technology and to evaluate the effective dose in the lungs and the risk of cancer. This study used Corentium's AIR THINGS digital radon detector to determine the radon concentration in sixteen ( 16) offices. The digital radon detector air Things of Corentium was placed in each office for a minimum period of one week and the concentration values were recorded every 24 hours. The values recorded in each office were the short-term average and the long-term average during seven days of measurement. The short-term radon concentrations vary between 5.286 Bq/m 3 and 192.714 Bq/m 3 with an average of 48.01 Bq/m 3 and those in the long-term were between 6.143 Bq/m 3 and 172.571 Bq/m 3 with an average of 52.46 Bq/m 3 . The measurements in office N˚6 and 13 were above the lower limit of 100 Bq/m 3 proposed by the WHO. The short-term and long-term effective doses in the lungs for offices N˚6 and 13 were above the "normal" background level of 1.1 mSv/year proposed by UNSCEAR-2000. The short-term effective dose in the lungs for office N˚6 was above the lower limit of 3 mSv per the ICRP-23 recommendation. The average number of lung cancer cases per year per million people was 15.