The Science of Responding to a Nuclear Reactor Accident: Summary of a Symposium by Ourania Kosti

Author:Ourania Kosti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The National Academies Press
Published: 2014-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

She discussed two major types of long-term follow-up studies that can provide some quantification of risk following a nuclear reactor accident: epidemiological studies and risk-projection studies.

Risk-projection studies have been carried out for some nuclear accidents and other radiation incidents to estimate the number of persons in a population who are expected to develop an adverse health effect such as cancer as a result of radiation exposure. Risk is estimated using information from previous epidemiological studies and is usually expressed in terms of adverse health effects above a baseline rate. Risk projection studies can be useful to estimate the types and numbers of adverse health effects.

High-quality, comprehensive, long-term follow-up studies after a nuclear reactor accident may be difficult to carry out because of concurrent events such as the earthquake and tsunami associated with the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Dr. Linet noted that it took investigators over 10 years to plan the first long-term study of health effects from the Chernobyl accident. Delays can affect the quality of the studies because memories of the event fade, and so, interviews become less reliable. Also, people are more likely to move, making it more difficult for investigators to track and interview the affected populations.

There are many reasons to prepare and plan for long-term follow-up of populations and workers exposed to radiation from severe nuclear reactor accidents. Dr. Linet listed the following key requirements for conducting such studies:

Large exposed population;

Wide range of radiation exposures within the population;

Well-vetted study protocol with major scientific and stakeholder input;

High level of identification of the exposed population, with special attention to subgroups that have been disproportionately affected by radiation exposure;43

Very high follow-up rates or participation levels;

Complete ascertainment of disease outcomes of interest;

High-quality radiation exposure assessment undertaken soon after the accident; and

Minimization of bias and confounding.

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