154

Health Physics

primarily from cosmic radiation, since the concentrations
of *8U, “K, and *’Th in the coral soils is very low
(Robison et al. 1997). This can be compared to the
highest annual dose received in Majuro from fallout of
8 mGy in 1954 and annual doses on the order of 3-5
pGy after testing in the Marshall Islands ended (Fig.
5). External doses from atmospheric tests conducted at
the NTS from 1951-1958 that were received by
Americans (in this example, outdoor workers who

lived in towns in Nevada and SW Utah) ranged from
about 0.03 to 40 mGy (Henderson and Smale 1990).
Because of shielding when indoors, the NTS doses

were smaller for persons who spent much oftheir time
indoors.

uncertainties, that the exposure was delivered only

during the year of the test. During that year:
:

X/E12

_

10

a

ny (AnXTOA)

5 |e
n=1

|

__

10

a

ne LAn(EOY — HD]
5 |e
}
n=1

(5)
where a, and A,, with n varying from 1 to 10, are the
parameters of the fit to Hicks’ calculated exposurerates
vs. time (Hicks 1981, 1984), TOA, in hours, is the

estimated time of arrival of fallout counted from the time of
the test, H, and (EOY—H) is the time elapsed between the
time of the test and the end of the year (EOY).

As previously indicated, the exposure, X, is very

Uncertainty
Uncertainties in the total dose received by each
population group in each year from all tests in that
year were derived relying, primarily, on the uncertainty of available measurements of exposure rates and
of deposition densities of long-lived radionuclides. For
a given test 7 and a givenatoll j, the external dose to
permanent residents of age a, D, in mGy, can be
expressed as:
soy

August 2010, Volume 99, Number 2

12;

DA, j) =E

.

X(i, j)

wax aae| *

(F2

X

x

[>

,

where

E12(i, j) =the exposure rate at H+12 (mR h')following test 7 at atoll j;

X(i, j) =the lifetime exposure (mR) duetotest i at
atoll 7; and

D,,/X =the conversion factor from exposure to
dose for adults (mGy mR').
The uncertainties were assessed to be as follows:

e £12: as discussed in Beck et al. (2010), an uncer-

tainty estimate was assigned to each estimate of E12
as inferred from the available measurement data.
These uncertainties, expressed in terms of geometric
standard deviations (GSDs), range from 1.3 to 3.0,

depending on the availability, quality, and number
of measurements of exposure rates and long-lived
radionuclides at the atoll for the test under consid-

eration; and
e X/E12: because the exposure, X, is delivered over a

number of years, at a rate that is relatively high
during the year of the test and much smaller during
the following years, the simplifying assumption was
made, for the purposes of the evaluation of the

sensitive to TOA (Table 2), while the uncertainty in the

values of a, and A, is assumed to berelatively minor
compared to the uncertainty due to TOA. Also, as shown
in Fig. 1, regression fit parameters vary little from one
test to another. For that reason, we assumed that TOA is

the parameter in eqn (5), which is uncertain to any
significant degree. In our simulations, the uncertainty
distribution for TOA forall atolls and all tests was taken
to be uniform between 0.8 and 1.2 times the nominal
values given in Table 6 of Beck et al. (2010):

e D,,/X: its nominal value of 6.6 X 10° mGy mR|! is

based on the calculations of Jacob et al. (1990) and on
the recommendations of ICRP (1996). The value of

D,,/X depends on the geometry of irradiation, on the
energy spectrum of the incident y-rays, and on the
tissue or organ that is considered. In our analysis,
the same nominal value is taken to apply to all organs
and tissues of the body. The uncertainty distribution of
D,,/X 1s taken to be uniform between 0.9 and 1.1 times
the nominal value and to mainly reflect differences
between the doses to various organsandtissues of the
body for exposures to y-rays of a few hundred keV
characteristic of fallout; and
e D,/D,, 18 the ratio of the external dose to children of
age a to adults. Its nominal value is 1.3 for young
children (less than 3 y of age) and 1.2 for older
children. Here, the uncertainty distribution, which is

assumed to be uniform between 0.9 and 1.1 times the
nominal value, reflects the relatively large range of
ages to which the nominal value applies.
The uncertainty estimates for individual tests were
derived via Monte Carlo simulation to obtain an estimate of
uncertainty for the total external dose received in each
calendar year from all tests in that year. Results are
presented in Table 7 in terms of GSD for representative
persons (both adults and children) of four communities
(Kwajalein residents, Majuro residents, the Rongelap Island

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