Trends in the doses of the population of the Russian Federation in 2003–2018

Abstract

In the last years radiation-hygienic passportization and Joint state system of control and accounting of the individual doses of the citizens have become a trusted source of the validated data on the state of the radiation safety in the Russian Federation and have become the basis of the Russian system of the information provision of the radiation safety. Annual analysis of that data is presented in the annual information bulletin “Doses of the population of the Russian Federation”. The current study is focused on the analysis of the data from the information bulletins to evaluate the trends in the doses of the Russian population from main sources of ionizing exposure in 2003–2018. It is indicated that the mean annual doses from man-made exposure of the group A staff in that period varies from 1,0–1,4 mSv per year, group B – 0,65–0,8 mSv per year. The number of exceedances of the annual dose limits from group A staff varied from 5 to 52 per year; for group B – 0–22 per year. For the whole investigated period there were only three cases of the exceedance of the 50 mSv annual individual dose for group A staff and four cases of the exceedance of the 12,5 mSv annual effective dose for group B staff. Mean effective dose per X-ray examination in 2006–2013 was decreasing from 0,56 mSv to 0,26 mSv and started to slowly increase leading to 0,29 mSv in 2018. The same trends were identified for the mean dose from medical exposure per citizen: reduction in 2003-2013 from 0,86 mSv to 0,45 mSv with the subsequent increase up to 0,56 mSv. The biggest contributor for the dose from medical exposure is computed tomography: the number of CT examinations increased from 1,3 mln in 2003 to 11,7 mln in 2018; contribution to the collective dose – from 5,7% to 54%. Mean annual effective doses from natural exposure of the population of the Russian regions varied from 1,6 to 15,1 mSv per year with the mean value for Russia of 3,11 – 3,79 mSv/year. The highest mean annual doses exceeding 5 mSv in each year were observed in Republic of Altay, Jewish Independent Region, Stavropol and Zabaikalskiy Krai, Republic of Tyva and Irkutsk region. Total effective doses exceeding 10 mSv/year were observed in Republic of Altay and Jewish Independent Region. For ten subjects of the Russain Federation (Republics of Buryatia, Altay, Tyva, Stavropol and Zabaikalskiy Krai, Irkutsk and Chita regions, Jewish Independent Region, Aginsko-Buryatskiy and Ust’-Ordinskiy independent districts) they exceed 5 mSv/year for the whole assessed period.