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Doses from external irradiation and ingestion of 134Cs, 137Cs and 90Sr of the population of Belarus accumulated over 35 years after the Chernobyl accident

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Abstract

This study considers the exposure of the population of the most contaminated Gomel and Mogilev Oblasts in Belarus to prolonged sources of irradiation resulting from the Chernobyl accident. Dose reconstruction methods were developed and applied in this study to estimate the red bone-marrow doses (RBMs) from (i) external irradiation from gamma-emitting radionuclides deposited on the ground and (ii) 134Cs, 137Cs and 90Sr ingestion with locally produced foodstuffs. The mean population-weighted RBM doses accumulated during 35 years after the Chernobyl accident were 12 and 5.7 mGy for adult residents in Gomel and Mogilev Oblasts, respectively, while doses for youngest age groups were 20–40% lower. The highest mean area-specific RBM doses for adults accumulated in 1986–2021 were 63, 56 and 46 mGy in Narovlya, Vetka and Korma raions in Gomel Oblast, respectively. For most areas, external irradiation was the predominant pathway of exposure (60–70% from the total dose), except for areas with an extremely high aggregated 137Cs soil to cow’s milk transfer coefficient (≥ 5.0 Bq L−1 per kBq m−2), where the contribution of 134Cs and 137Cs ingestion to the total RBM dose was more than 70%. The contribution of 90Sr intake to the total RBM dose did not exceed 4% for adults and 10% for newborns in most raion in Gomel and Mogilev Oblasts. The validity of the doses estimated in this study was assessed by comparison with doses obtained from measurements by thermoluminescence dosimeters and whole-body counters done in 1987–2015. The methodology developed in this study can be used to calculate doses to target organs other than RBM such as thyroid and breast doses. The age-dependent and population-weighted doses estimated in this study are useful for ecological epidemiological studies, for projection of radiation risk, and for justification of analytical epidemiological studies in populations exposed to Chernobyl fallout.

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Notes

  1. An oblast is the largest administrative unit in Belarus with a typical size of 30,000–40,000 km2 and a population of 1.1–1.5 million persons. There are six oblasts in Belarus each sub-divided into about 20 raions of about similar size and population.

  2. Semirural settlement is an administrative center of raion with population less than 100,000 that have both single-family rural houses with private farm and multistore urban buildings.

  3. City is considered a purely urban settlement, an administrative center of oblast or a settlement of republican authority, with population more than 100,000 persons, it consists of multistore buildings and has supply of foodstuffs from the commercial trade network.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Intra-Agency Agreement between the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, USA) and the NCI, NIAID agreement # DCC‒OD‒12‒900, and by the Intramural Research Program, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NCI, NIH, USA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, DHHS, 9609 Medical Center Drive, Room 7E548 MSC 9778, Bethesda, MD, 20892-9778, USA

    Vladimir Drozdovitch

  2. United Institute of Informatics Problems, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus

    Tatiana Kukhta

  3. Institute for Nuclear Problems, Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus

    Sergey Trofimik, Kiryl Viarenich & Victor Minenko

  4. Melohill Technology LLC, Rockville, MD, USA

    Dunstana R. Melo

  5. Republican Center of Radiation Control and Environmental Monitoring, 220023, Minsk, Belarus

    Marina Podgaiskaya

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  1. Vladimir Drozdovitch
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  2. Tatiana Kukhta
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  3. Sergey Trofimik
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  4. Dunstana R. Melo
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  7. Victor Minenko
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Correspondence to Vladimir Drozdovitch.

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Drozdovitch, V., Kukhta, T., Trofimik, S. et al. Doses from external irradiation and ingestion of 134Cs, 137Cs and 90Sr of the population of Belarus accumulated over 35 years after the Chernobyl accident. Radiat Environ Biophys 61, 445–464 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-022-00979-1

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